The Underground
by Katkid
Summary: Something terrible happened in Kong studios while the Gorillaz were away, and it left its mark. When Murdoc, 2D, Noodle and Russel return to Kong, they are unaware that something sinister lurks there. Something that wants them OUT...or dead. Pre-Phase 2
1. All About Noodle

-CHAPTER 1-

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-2D's POV-

* * *

I'm not very good at telling stories. I never know how to start or finish the stupid things. Murdoc is always saying that the only part I can handle is the middle—and even then I'm complete rubbish. I guess he's right. I like to go off on tangents and make weird little comparisons that only make sense to me. It's not my fault, really. I just get distracted easily, that's all. So if you end up in a completely different place than I'm at by the end of this story, I won't blame you if you won't blame me.

The thing is I'm not exactly sure when this story starts. I know where the middle is, and I'm pretty sure I've got the end nailed down. But the beginning...the beginning is tough to pick out. Everything happened so gradually that none of us noticed anything at all until everything was already completely out of control. Except Noodle. I think that she's the only one who really knows when it all started.

She was the first one to notice when things started to happen, but she kept her mouth shut. Not in a mean, "I'm not going to tell you about this because I want to see you all suffer when things get worse" way. She would never do that. No, she kept her mouth shut in more of an " I think I'm going crazy and if I tell anybody else about this they're going to think I'm a right nutter" way. I can't blame her for not speaking up earlier than she did. The poor kid really must have thought that she was going off her rocker. I know _I _wouldn't want to tell anybody if I thought I was going crazy.

I don't know how long things were going on before the rest of us noticed anything. It might have been a couple of days, a couple of weeks, or even months and months. I really do hope it wasn't as long as that, though. No kid deserves to go through that, least of all her. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that it should really be Noodle who starts this story and not me. But then again, here I am. Weird how things work out like that, huh?

You're probably starting to wonder what I'm blabbering on about with all this junk about going insane and "poor Noodle this" and "poor Noodle that." It's exactly like I warned you: I don't know how to start a story. I guess it would be better if I just did like Murdoc always tells me to do and "spit out your point, face ache, preferably sometime before New Year's." So here I go.

It wasn't dark and it wasn't stormy and it wasn't even night when I first noticed that something was upsetting Noodle. It was sunny and hot and the middle of the day. We—as in me, Noodle, Russel and Murdoc—were trying to record a song for our Demon Days album in the Kong studio. It was…well, to put things nicely, it wasn't going well. Three of us wanted to break for lunch. One of us didn't. All four of us were so hungry our insides were starting to digest themselves. Three of us cared. One of us didn't. Three guesses who the odd one out was.

"Come on, Muds, this is starting to boarder on cruel and unusual punishment," Russel groaned. He clutched at his stomach as it let out an impressive roar. "Can't we break for just five min—"

"No! Damn it, Russ, we _have _to get that track recorded _today! _I've already got our agents bitching at me and if we miss this deadline they'll really give me hell. We can break once we get something we can use on tape."

I'd made the mistake of not eating any breakfast before we started recording at the ungodly hour of six o' clock am. It was getting close to three in the afternoon now. I was so hungry I thought I was about to die. Or maybe just pass out. Either way, if I didn't get something to eat soon, things weren't going to be pretty. "We have plenty of good stuff on that tape already," I argued. _"Please _can we stop for just a little while?"

"You know as well as I do that everything on that tape is garbage," he snarled.

It wasn't all "garbage," really, but Murdoc has the habit of becoming a very foul-tempered perfectionist when we're working on a deadline. (Which we were.) Especially when our agents are bothering him. (Which, apparently, they were.)

He ranted on a bit longer about how _lazy _we were and how we were both _sodding no-talent dullards _and how his life would be so much _easier _and _better _without us in it. Noodle ignored it all because none of it was directed to her. It never was. Russ and I didn't pay much attention to it either because we'd both heard it about a thousand times before and we both expected to hear it at least a thousand times more. Plus, we knew it was a load anyways. I mean, really, who ever heard of a band with only a bass player in it?

While Murdoc was busy barking himself blue in the face, I snaked a hand into my pocket and fumbled with the little tin of painkillers that I always keep there. His insults had stopped hurting a long time ago, but his voice could still trigger one of my ever-so-delightful migraines if he yelled for long enough. I waited until he wasn't looking and then popped the little white pill into mouth and sucked on it like a tic-tac. The strong, bitter taste burned in the back of my throat, but I knew better than to try chewing. Murdoc would know what I was doing if he saw me crunching away, and then he'd really throw a fit. Besides, I've gotten used to the taste by now. I kind of like it, actually.

When Murdoc finally ran out of things to say (and with Murdoc, that can take an awfully long time), he breathlessly finished with, "And so help me I can and will keep us here until this song is up to snuff, even if it takes us through lunch, dinner, supper, afternoon tea, midnight snack, elevensies, and the fucking apocalypse! One more time from the top." He was so winded by his ranting that he didn't even have the energy left to ask Noodle to start the song. Instead, he just jerked his head at her like he was having a muscle spasm in his neck.

Noodle got the message and began to play her guitar intro. It was a short, high-pitched thing that sounded more like a tuning exercise than a real melody, but the way she played it, you would never think of it that way. Murdoc and Russel came in, both of their instruments sharp and clear as they set the actual tempo of the piece and then a pre-recorded demo of me singing the vocal accompaniment joined them.

My stomach twisted and rolled as I waited for my entrance and I gave Murdoc a dirty look before singing the first few lines of the song:

_O green world,_

_Don't desert me now_

_Bring me back to fallen town_

_Where someone is still alive._

Murdoc returned my dirty look with a death glare, and Russel gave us both nasty looks. The only things I could think about were how much my stomach hurt and how lucky it was that we weren't filming a music video right then. The looks on our faces were so ugly they probably would have given the faint of heart nightmares. We were so busy pulling dirty faces at each other that I guess what happened next couldn't have been helped.

I like to think that it was Murdoc who missed the beat first, even though it was probably me. I guess it doesn't really matter who did it first, because after a couple of seconds we were all hitting different beats at different tempos. Except Noodle, of course—she was still right on the beat we'd set. I swear, sometimes I think she's a robot or something along those lines. She probably wouldn't miss a note or skip a beat even if a tornado came along and sucked her up. She'd just keep right on playing her guitar while the funnel cloud whipped her around in the air like a little rag doll.

Eventually, we all realized that there was no way we were going to save the flaming wreck the song had become and one by one, we quit playing our instruments. Murdoc looked angry enough to blow a gasket, so I tried to say something to settle him down before he started screaming at us again.

"Sorry, Muds," I whimpered. "It's just so hard to concentrate when I'm so hungry and…." I trailed off, not exactly sure what should come after the 'and.' Still, I thought it was convincingly pathetic. Anybody with half a heart would have shown a little compassion. Murdoc showed none. Instead, he just picked up on his ranting right where he'd left off before. Sometimes I wonder if he kicks puppies for fun.

We would have had to listen to Murdoc's ranting for a very long time if Noodle hadn't groaned and started swaying on her feet like a teenager at a party who's had way more than one too many drinks. The three of us were at her side in a heartbeat. Russel put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. Murdoc pulled up a folding chair and Russel guided her to sit down in it. And all the while I was saying, "Noodle, are you all right? What's wrong? What happened? Noods? Are you all right?"

"She'd be a lot better if you'd shut up and get out of her face," answered Murdoc. He turned his attention from me to her and gently asked, "What's the matter, love? Feeling a little dizzy?"

Noodle shakily brought a hand up to her face to wipe away the cold sweat that was beading there. "I am fine," she quietly replied. She glanced at each of us with slightly glazed eyes and I noticed that her face was pale and tinted a sickish yellow color. "I think that maybe I am just…just hungry."

Russel sighed heavily and growled, "That does it. I don't care what you think, Muds, we're taking a break. The kid needs food, and she's going to get it."

"Well…well, yeah. Yes, of course," Murdoc stammered. He gave Noodle a worried glance and added, "I'm sorry, love. I didn't know you were feeling that bad. You should have said something."

"It is all right," she assured him. She slid off the chair and held onto it for support while she gained her balance. "Please do not worry for me. I will be fine."

"Come on, Noods, let's get you something to eat," Russel said, and I helped him escort her out of the studio. As we made our way to the cafe, I couldn't help wondering whether her fit was really caused by just hunger alone. _She looked sick, _I thought to myself. _Is she getting sick? Or…or is it something else?_

And that was when I first started to think that something was really bothering Noodle.

* * *

-Murdoc's POV-

* * *

Twelve hours. We spent twelve fucking hours in the studio and what did we have to show for it? Ninety minutes' worth of missed rhythms. An hour and a half of "experiments" that should never have been attempted. In other words, a shit load of…well, shit.

Not that this was my fault, mind you. I'm not saying that I was perfect—I'll even go so far as to admit that I may have made one or two minor errors. But keep in mind that 2D and Russel were the ones to blame for the real train wrecks. The dullard even managed to forget the lyrics to the song a couple of times, even though we'd been playing it all day.

I'd threatened to hold them hostage in the studio until we recorded something that met my standards and I would have made good on that threat if our agents hadn't called around seven o' clock pm. While I was busy trying to appease those slimy harpies, my singer, drummer and guitarist all managed to sneak out of the studio and disappear into the woodwork of Kong like a trio of cockroaches. I swear to hell and back someday I'm getting locks installed on _both _sides of that door.

I knew that our agents were going to get pissy when they heard that we didn't have the song ready, and I knew that I was going to be the one that had to deal with it. Sure enough, they gave me hell. After an hour (!) of oily sweet-talking and slick excuse-making, I managed to satisfy the bloodsuckers with a promise to have the song ready within the week. My three band mates had very considerately left everything on when they left (amps, mikes, mixers, recording equipment—somebody had even turned on the radio and the pompous newscaster's voice was prattling on about some serial killer that was still at large), so I ended up having to turn it all off myself.

Needless to say, by the time I finally got out of the studio, I was not in a mood to be trifled with. It's a lucky thing for my faithful band mates that I didn't happen across any of them on my way to the kitchen. I was mad enough to kick the shit out of 2D, and I probably would have even taken a swing or two at Russel if I'd had the chance. To tell you the truth, I was hoping to find somebody because I _wanted _a fight. Why else would I make the trek up to the kitchen for some booze when the haven that is my Winnie was just a few steps down the hall?

It didn't do anything to improve my mood when, after searching every cupboard and corner of the kitchen, the only alcohol I could find was a half-empty bottle of blush wine. I was in the mood to get so shitfaced that everything felt warm and fuzzy and numb and I wanted it to happen _fast. _The only thing that was going to do that for me was a nice, hard liquor. Of course, I had my good friends Jack Daniels and Johnnie Walker along with a nice stash of one-name wonders (Bacardi, Smirnoff, etc.) back in my Winnie, but they weren't going to help me much when I was in the kitchen. But I was damned if I was going to leave the kitchen without a little something for my efforts.

I pulled the cork out of the bottle with my teeth and didn't even try to find a glass before taking a long swig straight from the bottle. Much to my disgust, it was a sweet wine; the sweetest I've ever tasted. (Generally, I'm not a fan of sweet liquors. The way I see it, if you're wanting to get drunk, you shouldn't pussyfoot around it with some girly-tasting trash. The stuff I was drinking probably belonged to 2D—he's too much of a pansy to drink anything that doesn't taste like fruit juice.) Still, I was in such a foul mood that I didn't care much about the taste. I guzzled down about half of what was left in the bottle before coming up for air.

I gave myself a bit of time to catch my breath, and then took another big gulp straight from the bottle. There wasn't much of the stuff left after that. I eyed the piddly amount that was left and decided that it would be enough to get me back downstairs to my Winnie, where I could really get down to business. Taking a small sip with every few steps, I left the kitchen and began to head to the car park.

I heard Noodle's voice as soon as I stepped out of the kitchen and into the corridor. It was coming from the lobby, but I couldn't make heads or tails out of anything she was saying. For about three seconds, I thought that it was the alcohol. I even went so far as to think; _well this stuff isn't quite so bad after all. _But then I realized that (a) there was absolutely no way I could be that gone on a half-bottle of shitty blush wine, and (b) Noodle was speaking in Japanese.

_Now that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, does it? _I thought. _I haven't heard her say two words in Japanese since she came back from Japan and was able to speak English. Who in the blooming hell is she talking to? Not Russ or dullard. Neither of them know any Japanese. A zombie that managed to wander inside? _I snorted, mildly amused by the idea of the small girl discussing the deep and intricate details of the universe with one of the brain dead walking corpses that roamed the Kong grounds. And in _Japanese, _no less.

When I reached the lobby, I only ended up more confused. Noodle was there, still yammering on in her native language, but I didn't see anybody around that she could have been talking to. Noodle didn't seem to be having the same problem. Every so often, she would stop speaking and stare at a point in the air in front of her as though she was expecting an answer. I could see her eyes moving back and forth, like she was watching somebody pace back and forth. Taken slightly aback at the sight of my young guitarist talking to thin air, I glanced around the lobby again to make sure that I hadn't missed seeing anything. I hadn't. Aside from Noodle and myself, the room was completely empty.

Finally, after waiting an uncomfortably long time for her to stop speaking, I cleared my throat and said, "Who are you talking to, love?"

She jumped and whipped around to face me with a very unsettling expression on her face. Her eyes were wide; her mouth hanging slack and all of the color had drained from her cheeks. It was an expression of absolute terror, and for a moment I was afraid that she was going to have another fit like she'd experienced in the studio. I took a step forward and put out an arm, ready to catch her if she fell, but then her features relaxed back into a more natural expression and she said, "It's…it was Taro-kun."

"Taro-kun…?" I blankly repeated.

The color that had left her cheeks came rushing back in a dark blush. "That is what I call him. I do not know his real name."

I reached past her to push the button for the lift before asking, "What were you saying to…uh…to Taro-kun?"

"I was asking him what he wants. He will not tell me what he wants or why he is here. He never speaks to me. I think that maybe he cannot speak."

I frowned, concern edging through the buzz that was beginning to set in from the wine. "Where is Taro-kun now?" I gently asked as the lift doors slid open.

She looked down to the ground and quietly replied, "He is gone. I think that you might have scared him away."

"He's afraid of me?" I snickered and stepped onto the lift. "Smart boy."

Before she could answer, the lift doors glided closed. _So Noodle's invented herself an imaginary friend, _I thought as I felt the familiar jerk that signaled the lift's descent. _I thought that she was old enough to be past all that childish nonsense. Strange._ I took one last gulp from the bottle in my hand, finishing off the last of the wine, and then shrugged. _I suppose it's harmless enough as long as it doesn't get too out-of-control._

By the time the lift had reached the ground floor, the general creepiness of the situation had already begun to lose its edge. I was ready to dismiss it as weird (but not alarmingly so) and return my attentions to my most primary concern: getting back to my Winnie and getting some real liquor flowing through my veins.

**

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Author's Notes: Yay for first person POV! It's definitely my favorite style (which is weird considering I only have about three stories that use it). Anyways, I hope that you enjoyed chapter one. Next up is Noodle and Russel. Review if you are so inclined—it makes me happy!**


	2. Just a Figment of the Imagination

**-CHAPTER 2-**

**-Noodle's POV-**

Have you ever watched the moon all night? If you haven't, you should try it sometime. It's not as hard as it sounds. The moon is always changing; every night it's just a little different than it was the night before. Even if you were to watch it every night for the rest of your life, it would never have the same shape, color, size or mood twice. Watching it slowly make its way across the sky can be very soothing. After a while, you start to let go of all your worries and your mind becomes clear. Blank. Tabula rasa. That's when the answers that were already hiding in the far corners of your mind can finally come out. Some people call it divine revelation. I think I like 2D's way of saying it better: "having an _aha _moment."

The moon seemed distant that night. Even though it was almost full, it looked small and lonely in a sky that had no stars. There were no shades of gray between light and shadow that night. The moonlight had a stark, white quality that split everything into either bleached spotlight or inky darkness. It was an eerie effect that gave the night an unsettling, nightmarish feel, but it didn't faze me at all. In fact, it matched my mood perfectly.

I had a lot of questions that needed answers and a lot of problems that needed solutions. I'd been watching the moon for hours, and under normal circumstances I would have already reached that empty, open state and been well on my way to finding my answers and solutions. However, that night was far from normal. Even after all that time, my thoughts were a jumbled mess and I was beginning to suspect that I wasn't going to get my _"aha _moment" at all. Instead of feeling my mind growing clear (blank, tabula rasa) all I felt was a dull, stupid numbness.

I suppose I had a good reason to feel that way. I was getting close to sixty-five hours without sleep and exhaustion was setting in. My body needed rest, and it needed it badly. Every muscle felt sore and creaky. My head felt as though it was full of sawdust and my eyes were like two balls of marble in their sockets—cold and unbelievably heavy. Worse yet, there was an unnatural scratchiness developing in my throat. If I didn't get some rest soon, that scratchiness would turn into a real cold.

I knew that I needed sleep. I wanted to give in and allow my body to shut itself down. Close my eyes. Breathe in…and out…and in…and out…until all that was left was comfortable darkness. I wanted it more than anything else. And yet, even though I needed and wanted it very much, I did everything I could to fight it. I drank coffee. Soda. Energy drinks. If my eyes started to drift closed even with a fresh round of caffeine pumping in my blood, I bit my tongue; sometimes hard enough to taste blood. I took ice-cold showers twice a day, so cold that it hurt before my body finally went numb. All to deny myself of a few more seconds, minutes, hours of the one thing that I wanted most.

I could not hold out for much longer. I knew this for sure, even through the thick fog that was settling over my brain. My body had reached its limit and struggle as I may it was going to have its rest one way or the other. This idea sent a chill down my spine. The thought that my body would betray me like that was frightening.

Somewhere inside, I knew that I was being completely ridiculous. I knew that it was stupid to sacrifice my health for the sake of…_the sake of what? _I strained my exhausted mind, but could not come up with an appropriate word to fill in the blank. Some people may have said 'imagination' and left it at that. Early on, I might have been willing to do the same. Seeing shadows that move, hearing footsteps you shouldn't hear…it's easy to blame these things on an overactive imagination. Under the right circumstances, it could happen to anybody. It's when those shadows that were dancing at the corner of your vision _keep moving _after you've turned to look at them that you start to doubt yourself. Is it real? Can I still pretend that it's just an overactive imagination at work? Or am I sliding down the slope to insanity? I was beginning to worry that it was the latter.

Normal people do not see the things that I was seeing. Normal people do not talk to people that do not exist. Normal people do not force themselves to avoid sleep to the point of collapse.

_Do crazy people know they're crazy? _I wondered and choked back a laugh. For some reason, I suddenly found the idea to be quite funny. _If that's the case, I may have hope yet._

But the things I'd seen; the shadows…they were becoming more real. They were gaining depth, color, definite features. What I'd seen during our marathon recording session had been so solid, so undeniably _there _that I could not ignore it—but in spite of that, Russel, Murdoc, and 2D had shown no sign of noticing it at all. And then there was Taro. Though I had known that it was unlikely that all three of my band mates could have missed seeing a young boy roaming the halls of Kong, Murdoc had finally confirmed my fears. Taro was not real. Taro had never been real. I had been talking to nothing more than a figment of my imagination ever since I'd returned to Kong.

Whether it was some strange side effect of my insomnia or whether it was in fact because I was truly losing my mind, an ugly, accusing voice began to rasp away in my head. _"That explains why he never answered you, doesn't it?" _I shivered and screwed my eyes tightly shut. The last thing I needed to destroy my already questionable sanity was to start hearing disembodied voices.

_"How much longer until the others figure out what's happening?"_ I covered my ears and willed the voice to go away. In spite of my efforts to block it out, the voice took on a sneering tone and pressed on with, _"They're starting to suspect. All of them are starting to suspect."_

I clenched my jaw and resisted the urge to answer the voice as it continued to taunt me: _"They're starting to suspect and soon they'll all know. They'll all know that you're—"_

"Stop," I breathed. It was barely audible, but with that one whispered word, I'd given the voice the acknowledgement it needed to grow stronger, more insistent.

_"Careful, now…talking to yourself is one of the earliest symptoms of insanity."_ An ugly chuckle, and then: _"So is self-harm. Self-imposed sleep deprivation…for what?"_

I bit my lip, refusing to be tricked into answering the voice a second time. The voice snorted derisively and answered its own question. _"All because you're afraid of a harmless little dream."_

But was it really just a 'harmless little dream?' I had my doubts. I'd been exposed to more than my fair share of the strange and unsettling side of life during my years of living at Kong. Zombies, possession, ghosts—I was so used to it all by now that it seemed normal, even boring. This 'harmless little dream' was in a class of its own. The content was disturbingly graphic and it was so _real _that I could smell its rancid stink long after I jerked awake soaked in sweat and tears. Sometimes the smell was so strong I could taste it. To know that my mind had invented something so brutal terrified me.

_"You think it makes you crazy, don't you?"_

My throat grew tight and I swallowed nervously. "No."

_"You're crazy, crazy, cra-a-a-a-a-a-zy!"_

"No!"

I squeezed my hands against my ears so hard that it hurt, but it wasn't enough to block out the sound of that voice. It continued to chant _"crazy, crazy, cra-a-a-a-a-zy!" _over and over, louder and louder until all of my senses were dizzy with it. It rose in pitch until it was as shrill as a tea kettle screaming in my head: _"cra-a-a-a-a—"_

I tried to run, but my legs were suddenly clumsy and uncoordinated and I couldn't manage a single step forward.

_"—a-a-a-a-a-a—"_

My knees gave out and I dropped to the floor.

_"—a-a-a-a-a-a—"_

I threw myself forward, arms flailing to find something solid, something that could bring me back to reality and anchor me there.

_"—a-a-a-a-a-a—"_

My hand grazed something smooth and hard. Even through the impossible screeching in my head, I recognized what it was immediately: _my acoustic guitar._

_"—a-a-a-a-a-a—"_

I made a grab for it.

_"—a-a-a-a-a-a—"_

The voice stopped the second my hands closed around the instrument's sleek neck. The strings dug into my hands, but I didn't loosen my grip until the last remnant of the shrieking stopped ringing in my ears. When I was sure that the voice was not going to return, I adjusted my grip until my hands found their familiar playing position and cautiously strummed a chord.

The rich, warm sound pulsed through the room. It was wonderfully comforting, much more fulfilling than a child's security blanket or a simple nightlight. I shifted my fingers and struck a stronger, more confident chord. The tense, painful fear seemed to melt out of me through the pads of my fingers. Slowly, the tension that had built up in my nerves began to fade away as I allowed my fingers to pick out nonsensical melodies and random chords.

I could feel my body starting to relax into the hazy cycle that comes between being awake and being asleep, but I no longer tried to fight against it. Playing my guitar had had a therapeutic effect and my mind was finally ready to allow my body the rest it needed. My fingers became clumsy, missing notes here and there. My guitar seemed heavy in my lap, as though it had turned into solid steel. I allowed my eyes to drift closed for one second, just to give my aching eyes a rest, and one second became two, three, four…five….

It was the cold that alerted me to the fact that I was no longer alone. They always brought an unnatural chill when they appeared—even Taro-kun did. The comfortable lull that I had fallen into was shattered. I snapped my eyes open and sat straight up with a gasp. My guitar slipped off of my lap and clunked to the floor, but I didn't give it a second glance. All that mattered was finding the source of that sudden chill.

At first I saw nothing, but that didn't make me feel any better. _It's here, it _has _to be here, _I thought. I could feel my chest tightening and my breathing shortened into quick, panicked gasps. _Where is it?_

I whipped my gaze around the room, searching, searching, searching, and finally, I saw that it was sprawled on top of my bed. Every strand of hair, every chip and crack in its fingernails, every bloodstain and violation was visible in explicit detail. It was looking directly at me and I knew that it _saw _me just as clearly as I saw it. For one long second, my blood froze in my veins.

Somehow, even on its ruined arms and legs it managed to jerkily crawl towards me. When it reached the edge of my bed, it flopped to the floor with a sickening thud. I knew that I should get up and run away, but my legs were suddenly weak and useless. All I was able to do was sit on the floor and watch as the misshapen thing continued to advance._ It's real, _I thought. _No more shadows…it's all real! _

**-Russel's POV-**

I was busy plugging away on my X-box when I heard the scream. Let me clarify something for you right off the bat. You can hear plenty of screaming on any given day if you're living in Kong Studios and most of the time it's completely harmless. Sometimes it's the creepy but generally non-threatening demons that live in the bathroom. Other times it's a character in one of 2D's zombie movies. Even more often than that, it can somehow be traced back to Murdoc.

The scream I'd heard wasn't any of those things. This scream was one of the most desperate, gut-wrenching, throat-scarring things I'd ever heard. It was so bad that for a couple of seconds I froze up—my muscles were paralyzed and a chill crept up and down my spine. Once the initial shock of hearing it had worn off, I realized where it had come from and felt my stomach churn sickly. "Oh, Jesus," I muttered. _Noodle!_

I was on my feet and running without a second's thought. Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry I forgot that I still had a death grip on the X-box controller. I almost made it to the door of my room before the cord ran out. There was a sharp jerk and then the sound of TV static as the X-box went flying through the air, but I didn't even look back. I was already out the door and running.

When I got to Noodle's room, I was out of breath and sweating buckets. It took almost all of my resolve to resist the urge to pound frantically on the door. Instead, I knocked as gently as I could and said, "Hey, Noodle? Are you OK?" I cringed at the sound of my voice. I'd been going for mild concern, but I'd gotten quivery panic.

There was no answer from Noodle. I frowned and pressed my ear up against the door, listening for anything that might explain the scream I'd heard. After a few seconds of holding my breath and straining my ears, I heard a quick, sharp gasp followed by something that sounded like a dog whimpering on a stormy night. _Sounds like she's crying, _I thought and then frowned with worry. Noodle crying? I'd seen her upset before, but actually _crying? _The idea was so alien to me that it was unsettling to think that she was doing it now. I took a second to settle my nerves, then cleared my throat and announced, "I'm coming in, Noodle." Slowly, I took the doorknob in my hand, swung the door open and stepped into the room.

She was huddled into a little ball with her arms hugged around her legs and her knees pulled up against her chest. At the angle I was looking from I couldn't see her face, but it was easy enough to tell that she was terrified. Her whole body was shaking and I'd been right—she was crying _hard._

I quickly glanced around the room, looking for anything that could have scared her so badly. I didn't see anything; the room didn't look any different than the last time I'd seen it. "Noodle?" I gently said. She didn't even turn around to look at me. _Did she even hear me at all?_

"Noodle?" I repeated, a little louder this time. Still no answer. I walked across the room and knelt down on the floor beside her, but even then she didn't seem to notice me. Carefully, I reached out a hand and put it on her shoulder. The physical contact was enough to snap her out of her mini panic attack. She jumped and whipped around to look at me with eyes as wide as dinner plates. Then she sucked in a long, deep breath, threw her arms around my neck and started a fresh round of wailing.

"Hey, Noods, it's OK," I whispered. "You're OK." I rubbed her back, hoping to settle her down and eventually her hysterical sobbing died down to a soft mewling and then nothing more than occasional sniffling. Once she seemed calm enough to speak rationally, I untangled her arms from around my neck, put my hands on her shoulders and turned her around so she was looking me in the face. "What happened?" I evenly demanded.

"Russel—" she hiccoughed and her breath hitched. I was afraid that she was about to start crying again, but she managed to keep talking. "I had a…a dream."

I bit back the instinct to say, "Bullshit." From the look in her eyes (not to mention the desperation I'd heard in that scream), it was obvious that it wasn't something as simple as a nightmare. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head vigorously. "No…I cannot remember what it was about."

"All right…." I trailed off and tried to think of the right thing to say. All I could come up with was, "Do you need anything?"

She didn't answer right away and I started to get up off the floor. I was only half-standing when she grabbed my hand and whispered, "Please do not go away."

I looked down to her face and saw that the wild, fearful look had returned to her eyes. "Are you all right?"

A tremor shuddered through her small frame and then she looked away from me, down to the ground. "Please do not leave me alone."

"Noodle, what happened?"

Another tremor went through her and then I realized that she was crying again. I grit my teeth and tried not to show how afraid I was getting. Seeing Noodle like this scared me because I knew that she was a tough kid. Whatever had happened to get her this worked up, it must have been something really bad—something that I wasn't prepared to deal with at the moment.

"Hey, settle down," I whispered. I swallowed back a yawn and after a moment's thought, I added, "Would you feel better if I let you sleep in my room?"

She sniffled and wiped away some of the tears and snot on her face with the back of her hand before nodding yes. So that's exactly what we did. I took her back to my room and let her have the bed while I slept on the floor. She didn't stop crying for a long time after I'd tucked her in and turned out the light, but eventually her breathing became calm and even and she slept. Not long after that, I fell asleep myself thinking that after a good night's sleep Noodle would be fine and everything would go back to normal. But I couldn't have been more wrong. When I woke up in the morning, Noodle was gone.

**Author's Notes: I had a very hard time writing the Noodle POV at the beginning of this. For some reason, it was really tough for me to get into her head and write her convincingly. Hope you all enjoyed it and let me know what you thought by reviewing!**

**Next chapter: "Seeing is Believing"**


	3. Seeing Is Believing

-CHAPTER 3-

* * *

-2D's POV-

* * *

I'm not a fan of breakfast. For starters, it's in the morning. I don't like mornings. Maybe it's because I always feel like I have a hangover even if I didn't have anything to drink at all the night before. You know—headache, tired, dry throat and a sort of overall sickish feeling? That's me every morning. That right there is one mark against breakfast. I mean, really, if you ever meet anybody who actually feels like eating _anything _when they've got a hangover, tell them that they are very, very weird. And let them know that I said it.

Another reason that I'm not a big fan of breakfast is that after you've eaten your cereal or your fried eggs or your handful of packaged cookies or whatever else you like to eat in the morning, all the food just sort of…sits there. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just try to imagine having a bowling ball sitting in the bottom of your stomach and I don't mean one of those kiddy-sized five pound bowling balls, either. I mean one of those big, heavy black things you can't even lift up without popping your arm out of its socket. That's about how it feels. As you might have guessed, it's not a very comfortable feeling and it doesn't happen after any other meal of the day. Just breakfast.

Normally, I sleep late enough to skip breakfast, but not on _that _day. On _that _day I was up and at 'em at the crack of dawn. I guess that should have been my first clue that something weird was going to happen. I mean, sure, I can wake up early if I absolutely have to, but until then I'd _never _been up before Noodle. Even when Murdoc gets into one of his really anal moods and makes us start recording extra early Noodle will have been up and brewed a pot of coffee and put on a kettle before me or any of the other guys have even thought about rolling out of bed. I'd gotten so used to coming into the kitchen to the smell of coffee in the morning that I didn't know what to think when I walked into the kitchen and it was all dark and empty.

For a few seconds, I thought about making the coffee myself. Then I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to work the stupid coffeemaker. "Well, there goes that idea then," I muttered to no one in particular. I ended up pouring myself a glass of apple juice that was so old that it smelled like it had started to ferment. When I went to put the bottle of apple juice back in the fridge I noticed that there was a half-eaten box of Cheerios in there. That might sound weird to you, but after you've lived in Kong for a while you don't let piddly little things like that bother you too much. I poured myself a bowl of dry cereal (there wasn't any milk), stuck the box right back in the fridge where I'd found it and started crunching away.

So there I was in the kitchen eating my very glamorous breakfast of dry cereal and semi-alcoholic apple juice when the door went flying open and Russel came in. (Actually, what I really meant was something more like, 'Russel hit the door with the force of a charging rhinoceros and the door almost flew off its hinges.') Just from the way he was carrying himself, it was obvious that there was something very, very wrong. I thought that maybe he was pissed off about something (or just plain pissed), but one look at his face was enough to tell me that that wasn't it. His eyes were totally wild and he had this look on his face that reminded me of every victim from every campy teen slasher flick ever made. You know the look I'm talking about—that "Oh-shit-I'm-royally-fucked" expression that the horny high school kids get right before the killer in the hockey mask slashes through their necks with a butcher knife. He was so worked up that he didn't even seem to notice me standing there at the counter with my mouth full of Cheerios. Whatever it was that he was upset about, it had to be _bad._

I swallowed my mouthful of cereal, cleared my throat to give him a little warning that he wasn't alone and then said, "Uhm…Russ? What's going on? Are you all right?"

He blinked and that crazed expression melted into something closer to concern. He relaxed his posture a bit, too, but that wasn't enough to hide the fact that something was definitely going on. "Oh, hi, D," he said. "Didn't see you there." He paused for a second and scratched at the back of his neck as if to say, "I'm not really all that upset—look here I am scratching my neck before I say anything else just so show you that I'm not in any real hurry." When he stopped scratching his neck, he added, "I was just looking for Noodle. Have you seen her yet today?"

"No. Why are you looking for her?" I waited a few more seconds before carefully asking, "Did something happen to her?"

The answer came too quickly for comfort: a loud, forceful, _"No!" _He rubbed at his forehead with a sigh and then in a much calmer tone said, "No. I don't think so. No."

I frowned, starting to get a little worried. Russel is usually a pretty cool customer when it comes to bad situations. If anybody is going to lose their head and start acting completely bazonkers over something, it's usually me. "Russel, _what happened?"_

"Do you remember what happened with Noodle yesterday in the recording booth? You know; when she looked like she was about to faint?"

I felt a lump in the back of my throat. I swallowed it back down. It tasted like stale Cheerios. "Yeah…she…she didn't look so good. What happened? Did something happen? Is she OK?"

Russel held up a hand to tell me that I should shut up. (And this is where I'm very glad that I was dealing with Russel instead of Murdoc. If it'd been Murdoc, he probably would have yelled something like, "Shut your cake hole or I'll wallop you, brain ache!" This worked just as well and it _didn't _leave me fearing for my life.) "Look, calm down," he said. I'm still not sure whether that was meant for me or for himself. "I'm not even sure that there's anything to worry about yet. It's just that a couple of hours after the recording session Noodle had a sort of…Jesus; I don't even know what to call it. I guess I'd have to say it was a fit. She was upset about something—I mean _really _upset. She was crying, D."

"What happened?" I gasped. I'd never seen Noodle cry before. Up until that point I was convinced that either she didn't know how or she just physically could not do it. I was so shocked by what Russel had said that the rest of what he was telling me just started to melt together in my brain. I still nodded at all the right places and all that, but I wasn't really processing what he was saying at all.

The next thing I knew, I was on my way to the lift, planning to go downstairs to look for Noodle while Russel stayed in the kitchen eating the rest of my breakfast. I'm not exactly sure how that happened. I don't remember Russel asking me to go downstairs. I don't remember suggesting it. And I don't remember how Russel ended up with my food, either, but oh well. None of those little details are all that important, so it doesn't really matter if I remember them or not anyways.

As soon as I stepped off the lift, I knew that something was up. You know how you get that gut feeling that something is really, seriously _wrong? _Well, that's what I felt right then; this creepy, uncomfortable feeling that grabbed hold of my guts and twisted until I felt like I was about ready to grace the world with a "Technicolor yawn." (Lovely image, isn't it? Heard it from one of the guys that worked at dad's carnival. He was a pimply-faced little git who worked a ride called The Liquidator.)

I willed my spoiled apple juice and stale cereal to stay down and then quietly called out, "Noodle? Are you down here?" The only answer I got was a faint drift of borderline maniacal laughter from the demons that live in the loo. That wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but I couldn't shake the idea that something was really, really off.

A nervous sweat popped out on my face and started to roll down my back; the kind of sweat that reeks like raw onions. I took a wary step forward and then called out a little louder, "Noodle? Hey, Noods! Where are you at?"

I strained my ears to pick up any sign of the kid's voice, and that was when I heard something that was a lot stranger than the demons in the loo. It was a funny scratchy squealing noise that sounded like…well, actually, scratch the comparison. I can't think of anything bizarre enough to compare it to. The point is it was one of the weirdest sounds I'd ever heard and it seemed to be coming from the booth.

That nasty feeling wrenched through my guts again: _something is wrong; get the hell out of there, you dumbass—run away, run away, runawayrunaway!_ I walked forward without even thinking about what I was doing. I felt like I was stoned without the nice giggly-happy feeling. I paused with my hand on the doorknob for just a second (just long enough to think, _this is a really bad idea)_ and then pushed the door open and walked inside.

The sound was louder in the booth (the squealing was creepy enough to make all the hair on my arms stand up and the scratching was more like a papery crunching sound), but the booth was completely empty. I almost lost my nerve and turned around and left at that point, but then I realized that it would be silly to back out after going so far. Besides that, if Russel or Murdoc ever got wind of the fact that I'd been scared off by some harmless little noise they would never let me forget it. With that thought in mind, I decided to get it over with and barged into the studio kitchen.

It was even worse in the studio kitchen. I actually had to stop and plug my ears to block out the squealing because it was sending chills down my spine that made my whole back twitch. I looked around the kitchen, trying to find anything that might have been making the sound, but I didn't see anything. Nothing was out of place—even the half-eaten hero sandwich that Russel had left lying out on the counter yesterday was right where he'd left it.

"Damn it," I muttered. The sound wasn't scary anymore; it was just annoying the blinkers out of me and I wanted it to stop. I started off towards the desk room and then tripped over the garbage can and ended up rolling through the door in a very graceful tangle of arms and legs. After picking myself up off the ground (and picking a banana peel out of my hair), I glanced around the desk room and then muttered a string of curses that would have probably even embarrassed Murdoc if he'd heard them.

I'd found what was causing the screeching noise. Somebody had taken a tape, ripped all of the black recording film out of it and then jammed the whole deal into the tape player and hit the play button with the volume all the way up. But it wasn't just any tape. This particular tape happened to be the one that had everything we'd recorded during our marathon recording session on it. I knew that Murdoc was going to be very, very pissed off and that somebody was probably going to die a very painful death. Most likely, that somebody was going to be me, especially if he happened to catch me in the studio with the ruined tape.

I shut off the tape player, popped the tape out and examined it, hoping that maybe there was something I could do to fix it. It didn't take long for me to realize that there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to put all that black film back inside the cassette where it belonged. The tape was well and totally destroyed.

_What the hell am I going to do about this? _I hopelessly wondered. _I can see exactly what'll happen if I out and out tell Murdoc about it. "Oh, uh, Murdoc? So you know how you said that tape was all rubbish and shit? Well, it's totally destroyed now, so you don't have to worry about it anymore." And then he beats me completely senseless. But I can't just throw it away—that would look even worse. What am I going to do? _"Well, either way I'm fucked," I muttered.

I was about to set the ruined tape down on the desk and then get my skinny heinie out of that studio before anybody else came in and saw me, but then I heard a quiet, shaky whimper from the instrument room. Suddenly everything just seemed to _stop _because I knew exactly who was making that noise, even though I'd never heard her do it before and I never thought that I would hear her doing it. That sense of doom, death and destruction came back and clamped down with a vengeance. "Noodle?"

She didn't answer. That scared the hell out of me. I ran for the instrument room without even bothering to put the tape down somewhere first. She was hunched over something in the corner with her back to me. Her whole body was shaking and she was making this high-pitched whining sound in the back of her throat. My mum used to have a scrappy little Dachshund when I was little. It would make noises like that whenever we had a thunder storm.

"Noodle?" She didn't even turn around. I don't think she even knew I was there. My stomach was doing this insane Irish jig. It felt like a whole troupe of Riverdancers was jumping up and down inside my stomach.

I didn't know what to do except stand there in the doorway like an idiot. "N-Noods? Are you all right? I'm…." I stopped to clear my throat. My voice sounded like it was about two octaves too high. "I'm going to come over to you, OK?" Slowly, I crossed the room until I was close enough to reach out and touch her. That's when I saw what she was looking at.

It was a tatty old cardboard box. It looked like it could have been a box that none of us had gotten around to unpacking, except for what was _in _it. At first I thought it was a bunch of wigs. But after a second, I realized that it wasn't fake hair—it was bunches and bunches of _real _hair from _real _people's heads and there was _a lot _of it. It was all women's hair. I don't know how I knew that, but somehow I _knew _that it was women's hair. Red, black, brown, blonde—lots of blonde—curly, straight…all of it different, but all of it somehow the same, too. Noodle was clutching clumps of it in her hands tight enough to turn her knuckles white and just staring at it without seeming to see it.

"Oh," I whispered. Because what in the hell else are you supposed to say in a situation like that?

Noodle dropped the hair in her hands and turned around to face me, but she was moving like a zombie. Even when she was looking right at me, I don't think she realized I was there. I noticed she had a scratch on her cheek. It was long and deep enough that it was that dark pinkish color you get sometimes when a cut isn't quite deep enough to bleed. It looked like it probably hurt. She didn't seem to care. She just stood there staring and that's when I noticed she wasn't looking at me at all—she was looking towards the doorway _behind _me.

I turned around to look in the direction she was looking and came the closest I'd come yet to losing my breakfast that day. There was something there in the doorway but I didn't know what it was. At first I thought it looked a little like the zombies you see in movies like _Night of the Living Dead, _but then my brain sort of just numbed up at that idea. There was no _way _that what I was looking at had _ever _been human. No way. It was too brutalized—the limbs were all wrong and the face…could I even call it a _face? _Not even the most over-the-top movie producer in the world could have dreamed up something so wrong. So my brain just said, _Nope—that thing isn't, wasn't and can't be human. End of story._

As I was still trying to come to grips with what I was looking at, the thing in the doorway started to move. Don't ask me how it moved on legs that shouldn't have even been able to bend at all, the point is that it _did _move and it was skittering or sliding or I-don't-know-what-to-call-it-ing across the floor towards me. I stepped back and bumped into Noodle, who still hadn't moved. The last corner of my brain that was still trying to hold on thought, _I've gotta keep that thing away from Noodle. _And then that last little holdout decided to quit hanging on and I completely lost it.

* * *

-Murdoc's POV-

* * *

I woke up to two extremely nasty things that morning. Number one was the most fiendishly bitchy hangover I'd had in years. I tried to remember what I'd had after polishing off the bottle of grade-A shit blush wine and couldn't. Not that any of that mattered much when I felt like finding a nice rock to crawl under and die, mind you.

The second (and by far more annoying) thing I woke up to was 2D squealing like a pig in a slaughter house. For a few minutes I tried to ignore the fact that his screaming was making my headache bad enough to make me want to bash my skull in with a sledgehammer. I even resorted to burying my head under my pillow to blot out the sound, but it didn't help. He was really screeching and even through my brain-boggling headache and the mounting urge to vomit up the sour lump that was sitting in my stomach I could tell that it wasn't going to stop unless I did something about it.

"Keep it up, brain ache," I growled. I slid out of bed and stared at the floor until the walls decided to stop tipping back and forth. I could feel my stomach slosh dangerously, but then it settled back into the still nauseous (but somewhat manageable) tight feeling I'd had when I first woke up. "Just _keep it up. _I'll really give you something to scream about." I started toward the door of my Winnie, stopped, considered pulling on at least a pair of jeans, decided against it and then wobbled my way out into the car park.

I'd thought the screaming had been coming from the dullard's room. Once I was out in the car park, it became fairly obvious that it _wasn't _coming from his room. Which meant that I was going to have to hunt around the whole goddamned ground floor in order to shut him up. Which meant that when I found him I was really going to beat the shit out of him. Or maybe I'd wait to do it until I didn't feel like somebody was shoving a pickaxe through my left temple. Either way, he'd get what was coming to him.

I had a fairly easy time of finding 2D once I started looking. His shrieking was impossible to miss. I found him in the instrument room with his eyes squeezed shut, screaming at the top of his lungs. He was pale and looked like he was about ready to piss himself. He looked so terrified that if my head wasn't about to explode I might have considered not handing him his ass.

I was well aware of the fact that he was in a difficult position—one that required delicacy and care. To that end, I handled the situation as gently and eloquently as I could under the circumstances. "What in bleeding hell is your _problem?"_

The only reply he gave me was another round of squealing. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard enough to make his head snap back and forth. _"Shut the fuck up, brain ache!" _I shouted.

Luckily, that seemed to do the trick. He snapped his eyes open, darted a wild look around the room and then shuddered as though he'd been zapped by a power line. "M-Muds," he whispered.

"You've got four seconds to convince why I shouldn't rip your head off and use it as a cricket ball. One."

He stared at me like a particularly stupid cow.

"Two."

"Muds, didn't…didn't you see…?"

"Thr—"

"What in the hell is going on in here?"

I cursed under my breath. No way was I going to punch dullard's face in with Russel standing right there. I may have had a hangover, and as generally unpleasant as that can be, I wanted to be alive long enough for it to go away.

"Russ," 2D whimpered. "Did you see…?"

"What? D, what happened? Did you find—oh, _Christ! Noodle!"_

Russel barged past me and 2D and then I noticed that Noodle had been standing behind 2D. The expression on her face was one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen, and I'm not ashamed to admit that with me, that's really saying something. Her eyes were glazed and her jaw was completely slack and her skin had gone a stony grayish color, save for an ugly, pinkish gash on her cheek. From the way she reacted (or rather, failed to react) to Russel when he put his hand on her shoulder, it was clear that she had no idea that any of us were with her. The lights were on, but not only was nobody home—they had run away and joined the circus indefinitely.

"What the hell did you _do, _Muds?" Russel demanded.

_"Me? _You're asking me what _I _did?" I furiously demanded. "Fuck, I just came in here and found face ache screeching. What the fuck do you think I—"

"Didn't you _see _it?" 2D gasped.

Russel and I both stared at him. "See what?" Russel carefully asked.

"But…but it was there—right there!" He raised a trembling finger to point at the doorway and shook his head. "I don't understand how...where it went. I saw a—I don't know what to call it. A—a m-monster?"

For a full five seconds, Russel and I just stared at him. Russel opened his mouth as though to say something, and then closed it again. And that was when I noticed the wad of black film that was trailing from 2D's fingers.

"What the fuck is this?" I snarled, ripping the mass of recording tape out of his hands—an impressive feat if you consider that fact that my hand-eye coordination was still completely out the window at that point. He looked at it with a look of utter bewilderment and made as if to reach for it. I yanked it back out of his reach and repeated, _"WHAT IN THE BLOODY FUCKING HELL IS THIS? WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU—"_

I felt a restraining hand on my shoulder and vaguely heard Russel say, "Just let it go right now, Muds. We need to help Noodle right now."

Noodle? Who was Noodle? I didn't give a blooming fuck about anything except the tangle of recording tape in my hands. Somebody had to die (preferably in the most painful manner imaginable), and lucky for me, 2D was sitting right there; right within striking distance….

* * *

**Author's Notes: **There! An update just in time for Halloween! Sorry about the long delay. College is eating my soul right now, so updates are probably going to be pretty sparse for a while. I'll try and write when I can though. Please review—it'll give you good karma!

Next chapter: Lights Out


	4. Lights Out

-CHAPTER 4-

* * *

-Noodle-

* * *

Everybody reacts to danger differently. For some people it's a drug. Their blood starts to rush, their muscles twitch, and they run to meet it without even considering the risk. Other people become so calm and precise they can walk into a burning building or wrestle a shark and come out without a single scratch. There are people who can face danger with a smile and there are people who can do nothing but run away from it. All of these responses are perfectly normal and acceptable—even running away if need be.

Running away is exactly what I did. I may not have done it physically—my body never left the studio. Instead, I ran away to someplace safe deep inside myself. I don't know how long I stayed there. There was no concept of time in the place I had run to. It was warm and dark and quiet. Safe. Vaguely pleasant. I didn't know if I wanted to stay there or if I wanted to leave. I didn't know anything. I didn't _have _to know anything while I was there.

I don't know how long I would have stayed there if I would have been left to myself. Maybe forever. Maybe not.

The first thing I noticed was that I was drifting. My head felt as though it was a thousand miles away from my feet. My feet felt weightless and my body felt scrambled.

Something was pulling me back together; forcing my head to connect to my spine to connect to my legs to connect to my feet. It was a sound. At first it was so far away I couldn't identify what it was. Then I was on a bullet train that was thundering towards it. The sound became louder, closer, and suddenly I knew that it was Russel's voice. He was shouting about something and he sounded furious.

I tried to ask him what he was so angry about, but my voice wouldn't come out of my throat. All I could do was listen.

_"I said leave him the hell alone, Muds! Let him go!"_

_"What were you thinking in that feeble mind of yours, shit-for-brains?"_

_"It wasn't me…Murdoc, I swear it wasn't!" _That was 2D. He sounded dazed, like when he takes a heavy dose of painkillers. _"Didn't you see—"_

_"Well if it wasn't you then who the fuck was it? By all means, enlighten me."_

And suddenly my world was graced with light and full color. I was back in the studio and I still had handfuls of discarded hair stuck to my sweat-soaked palms. I didn't try to scrape it off. Instead I turned around to look at my three band mates. Russel was standing between 2D and Murdoc. 2D looked as dazed as he'd sounded, but I didn't think it was because of the bruise that was forming beside his left eye. He had strings of shiny, brown-black film dangling from his hands. I felt an insane urge to laugh at the image—_Just like that hair that's stuck to my hands, _I thought. Murdoc was looking at 2D with murder in his eyes. None of them seemed to notice me.

2D shook his head and said, "I don't know who—"

_"Bullshit!" _Murdoc moved as if he wanted to sidestep around Russel, but his movements were clumsy and Russel had no trouble stopping him.

"You know, Muds, if Noodle wasn't standing over there comatose I would seriously consider kicking your ass," Russel snarled.

"Oh, go ahead and _try _it."

I watched the argument go on this way for several minutes. Murdoc accuses 2D of committing some sort of transgression, presumably destroying a demo tape. 2D denies it. Murdoc tries to get around Russel. Russel stops him, usually with some sort of mild threat. Murdoc responds to Russel's threat and then accuses 2D of committing the crime. And so on.

Something about the repetitive nature of their argument brought me fully back to my senses. Maybe it was the familiarity of it. Arguments between the three of them often followed this pattern. Whatever the reason, I felt a sense of calm roll over me. The slick of cold sweat that soaked my face and body began to dry. My muscles stopped quivering. Normalcy was temporarily restored.

When it became obvious that their fighting was not going to stop for some time, I quietly slipped out of the studio. There was no point in watching it any longer. I knew that eventually Murdoc would storm off to the carpark, Russel would mutter under his breath and fiddle around with his hip-hop machine for the next several hours, and 2D would wander off to find his painkillers to treat the headache that all the yelling had brought on. Except that wasn't what happened this time.

Instead, 2D came barreling out of the studio shouting, "Noodle, wait!"

I pushed the button for the lift and waited to hear Russel or Murdoc come storming out of the studio after him. They didn't. The lift doors opened and 2D followed me inside. He waited until the doors closed. Then he said, "Are you all right?"

I quickly nodded yes. Too quickly. He frowned and pressed, "Are you sure? You're bleeding."

I brought a shaky hand up to my cheek and felt a raw sting. There was a thin trickle of blood there but nothing serious. It was already starting to scab. Even so the, the scratch scared me. _Now they can touch me, _I thought. _Or did I do this to myself? _Either way, I felt disgusting.

I felt as though I was choking on something. There was a dull ache behind my eyes and in my nose. I was afraid to answer 2D's question. I couldn't trust my voice. All I knew was that I had to get away from him before he asked another question.

The lift's doors opened and I stepped off. I was almost safe. In a few more seconds the doors would close again and then he would be gone.

"What was that thing that scratched you?"

I felt my heart stop. It was a like a ball of ice in my chest. I could have ignored the question. I could have kept walking, all the way back to my room where I would play with chords and melodies on my guitar while I pretended everything was normal. I didn't.

"I do not know." My voice sounded tight and weak. I can't stand that tone of voice. It makes other people worry and fuss. I hated myself for using it.

"So you saw it, too," he whispered to himself. I heard his footsteps in the hall behind me as the lift's doors whirred shut. "That's good. Not…not that you had to see it, but good that I'm not going crazy."

I shook my head. "I thought I was going crazy, but now you can see them, too, so I do not know what to think anymore."

"Wait…what do you mean? Have you seen that thing before?"

I didn't want to say anything more. I was afraid that putting it into words would make it real and it was too horrible to be real. _But you're not going crazy, _I reminded myself. _Not unless we both are. If he sees them then he needs to know. _I turned around to face him. "I have seen them for a long time."

His empty eyes went wide. "Them? You mean there's more than one of those things?" I nodded. "How many are there?"

"I am not sure. There are many. Ten. Or perhaps fifteen."

"Are they all like the one that was…?"

"Almost all of them. Taro-kun is the only one that is different."

He bunched his eyebrows together and said, "Who's Taro-kun?"

I chewed my lip, suddenly wishing I hadn't mentioned Taro-kun. There was no need to discuss him, but now there was no escape. "He is younger than I am, and he looks like a normal boy. I do not know his real name; I think that he cannot speak. That is why I call him Taro-kun."

Something new occurred to me and I blurted it out without thinking: "He is the only male."

2D didn't seem to understand the significance of this new fact. Perhaps it only seemed important because it was new to me. It always seemed terribly important whenever I noticed something new about the visions I'd been seeing. At the time it seemed absolutely imperative that he understand this new piece of information, so I repeated it slowly and carefully: "All of the others are like the one you saw downstairs. Taro-kun is the only male."

* * *

-Russel-

* * *

I don't know how long we'd been arguing without noticing that Noodle had left. My tolerance for Murdoc's attitude was wearing thin and I was about to walk away from the whole thing. I was fairly sure that Murdoc had blown off enough steam by this point to let 2D fend for himself. Plus, I was starting to suspect that Murdoc was so hung-over he wouldn't be too much of a threat.

I was about to open my mouth to deliver my exit line when I noticed that 2D wasn't looking at Murdoc anymore. He was looking at a point somewhere behind Murdoc with a glazed expression on his face.

"What is it, D?" I asked.

The question had come out sounding much harsher than I'd meant, and he winced a little before saying," Where…where's Noodle?"

Behind me, I heard Murdoc turn around to look around him. "Damn," he said, but all of the fire had gone out of his face and the swear sounded hollow. I turned around slowly, already knowing what I was about to see. 2D was right; Noodle had disappeared.

For a few seconds, we were all silent because every one of us knew that we had made a very, very big mistake. I think we were all afraid to say anything out loud because it had been our voices that had caused us to lose her and we didn't want to cause something else to happen.

2D was first to recover. "I tried to tell you," he whispered.

Murdoc and I turned around to face him cautiously. His voice had been low, but it was dripping with an uncharacteristic fury that was almost frightening.

"I _tried _to tell you," he repeated. "Something was here. I _saw _it. It might have even been what hurt Noodle but you wouldn't hear any of that, would you?"

"Now look here, face-ache, if you think you can just—"

"Oh, shut _up, _Murdoc!" 2D snapped. Murdoc stared at him in disbelief and, surprisingly, he did close his mouth.

2D had turned a sickly shade of yellow, and he was shivering, but he kept talking in that same unnervingly hostile tone. "I tried to tell you and all you did was scream at me over this—" he gave the film in his hands a shake. The long, dark strands whispered dryly. "—which wasn't even my fault and you said it was all shit besides! And now we've gone and…and fucked up Noodle even more than she was! What's the _matter _with you?"

And with that he stormed off towards the door. "Where are you going?" Murdoc was so surprised he sounded like a wounded kitten.

"To find Noodle, so you can both just fuck off!"

The door slammed behind him. Murdoc and I just stared at each other in goggling disbelief. 2D—carefree, easygoing, good-natured 2D who was too spaced out to care about anything more often than not—had just delivered a Murdoc-sized tantrum. It was as though a volcano had erupted or an earthquake had flattened the room into rubble. Finally Murdoc scoffed and muttered, "Who does that little leech think he is? Me?"

"I don't know, Muds." All of the tension that had been building in me over the course of the fight had drained away with the shock of 2D's outburst, and I wasn't angry at Murdoc anymore. I was just tired. "I'm telling you, something strange is going on here."

He kicked at a twisted tendril of film on the ground. "This is KONG, Russ. Let me tell you a little secret, just in case you missed the zombies, demons, and other supernatural codswallop: there's always something strange going on here."

"I know that. This is different."

"Psh. Different how?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Getting through to Murdoc with a hang-over is a lot like dealing with a petulant child, but only about half as effective. I decided to try anyway, for Noodle's sake at least. "Noodle's never been afraid of anything around here before. She was cool with the zombies since day one. Whatever this is, it's something new."

"Something new, eh? Come to mention it, I do remember something a bit odd from last night." (I raised an eyebrow. If his current state was any indication, he'd consumed enough alcohol to forget the events of the past two weeks. Still, I let him go on without any remarks about the reliability of his memory.)

"It was after the recording session," he said. He ground the twisted bit of film under his bare foot. "I saw Noodle while I was waiting for the lift. She was talking to some imaginary friend that she'd invented for herself. Er…Terry-goon, she called him. Or maybe it was Tori-loon. Something along those lines."

I frowned. Noodle had always been a bit odd—we all had to be in order to live in KONG without going insane—but she had never seemed the type of kid to need an imaginary friend. Fainting, crying, imaginary friends…none of it seemed to fit with the girl who had popped out of the FedEx crate and laid down a face-melting guitar riff all those years ago.

I was about to tell Murdoc so, but then I noticed that he was already on his way out of the instrument room. "Hey, Muds, where are you going?"

"Ugh. Back to bed. Whatever's going on it can wait until I feel—oh, what the hell is this now?"

In the middle of his reply, all of the lights in the studio had blinked out, leaving us in pitch darkness. From somewhere in front of me, I heard him say, "Russ, do we have a flashlight down here? Last thing I need is to trip over some rubbish somebody left lying about on the floor and break my neck."

"Hold on. I'll check."

I could hear him stumbling around the room, and even though I couldn't see him I definitely felt him when he stepped on my foot. Unfortunately, I was also close enough to smell his breath as he muttered a string of unprintable curse words under his breath.

I wrinkled my nose at the rank stench (even taking his general lack of personal hygiene into account, it seemed especially rancid that morning), and said, "Geez, Muds, you think you could brush your teeth every once in a while?"

"Funny," he muttered. "I was just about to tell you to ease up on all those bean burritos."

"That's not you?"

"The hell it is." There was a crash, another shouted expletive, then: "Ha! Found it."

A switch clicked, and then the flashlight blinked to life. In the yellow beam of light I could see Murdoc standing amid the scattered pile of tambourines he'd knocked from the shelf. I could also see the outline of two vaguely humanoid things writhing on the floor in the middle of the room. The torsos were recognizably human. The skin was discolored and pocked with deep slashes, but they were definitely human. (I could see ribs. Collar bones. One of them had a belly button ring. I swear to Jesus one of them had a pink rhinestone belly button stud.) The rest was a mishmash of arms bent the wrong way, legs bent at impossible angles, necks slit open with gaping, black wounds, faces—I couldn't look at the faces. Part of me thought (stupidly, crazily), _Well at least now we know where the smell is coming from._

I let out something that sounded like a breathless rasp of a laugh. My brain had gone blank at the grotesque sight and it wasn't quite sure how to deal with it, so another horrified laugh snuck out. Murdoc's voice was a high, whining whisper as he said, "What the fuck…what the _fuck…."_

And then those things, those disgusting abominations _moved. _Their malformed legs were moving and they were hobbling towards us. Something in the way they moved was enough to convince me that they were more sentient than the zombies that infested the grounds outside the building. I also noticed with a sense of gut-wrenching horror that they were faster.

Murdoc and I didn't fend them off with weapons improvised from the musical instruments in the room. We didn't bust out any impressive hand-to-hand combat skills. We did the only thing we could have done. We turned tail and ran.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Holy heck this story is back from the dead. Believe it or not, I've still got my outline for this thing, so hopefully I'll be able to get it finished this time around. In the meantime, I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed, or added this story to your favorites lists, or put it on alert. It means a lot to me to know that people are reading this story, and I appreciate all of the feedback.

Next chapter: "Out of the Frying Pan"


	5. Out of the Frying Pan

-CHAPTER FIVE-

* * *

-2D-

* * *

I don't think I'll ever have Murdoc's way with words. Most of the time, I consider that a good thing. I mean, half the time he opens his mouth it's to say something mean and nasty. (Unless he's talking about himself. Then he's all candy floss and lollipops until somebody tries to change the subject.) If he's not saying something soul-killing and he's not talking about himself, chances are he's talking about one of his other favorite topics: fame, drugs, or sex. The thing is, even when he's being a crusty arse, he's always got something to say.

Me, I had no idea what to say to Noodle after she told me about all of the awful things she'd been seeing. I wanted to say something to make her feel better—but what do you say to comfort someone who's just told you they're being haunted by apparitions so horrible they would make even zombie master George Romero piss himself?

I wanted to ask her, _Are you sure you're all right? How long has this been going on? Are there really FIFTEEN of those things? What if there are more? Where did they come from? What do they want?_ The words were there, swirling around in my head like a pack of puppies in a shop window going "pick me, pick me, pick meeee!"But somehow, none of those seemed right, either.

I even caught myself wondering what Murdoc would say. All I came up with there was his pebbles-in-the-chest voice in my head going, "Bugger if I know, face ache." Guess that means even he would have drawn a blank.

I was still fumbling over what to say when the lights went out. You know how sometimes you'll get a couple of warning flickers or a funny little electrical buzzing sound before that happens? None of that happened for us. One second it was light. The next second, _pop! _Pitch black.

I did what anybody would have done if they were in my shoes: jumped about three feet straight up in the air and screamed like a scared little schoolgirl. I don't know if Noodle jumped, too. It was so dark I couldn't even see her standing right there in front of me. Besides that, my heart was doing this painful scared rabbit kick against my chest at the idea of us being stuck in the dark in Kong with a bunch of monsters out to get us. It's kind of hard to pay attention to anything else when you're worried that your heart is about to explode.

When my heart slowed down to a slightly less heart attack-inducing rhythm, I croaked, "All right there, Noods?"

She answered back, calm as ever: "Yes, I am fine."

"Good." I let out a laugh that sounded like a croaking toad and thought, _Man…she wakes up early, she can work the coffee pot, she's not afraid of the dark…sometimes I think she's more grown-up than I'll ever be._

I was just getting calm enough to think about apologizing to Noodle for screaming in her face like a prat when she sucked in a sharp, hissing breath through her teeth. Just like that, my heart was back in my throat and ticking like a strobe light. She said something in a choked whisper. It took me a second to realize it was my name.

"W-what?"

She didn't answer. I could hear her fumbling around in the dark, like she was looking for something.

I shivered. The cold sweat running down my back felt too much like little ghost fingers for comfort. "Noodle, what is it?"

Her breath was coming in short, scared little gasps. There was a sound of hands scrabbling along the wall, and then a click—the button for the lift. She was calling the lift.

"Noodle!"

"2D," she whispered. "They're here."

"Who's here?" I don't know why I said that. It's not like I didn't know what she meant. I think I was so scared I didn't know what I was saying. Or maybe I was hoping she would pick up on the _Poltergeist _reference and say "The TV people."

She didn't say that, though. In fact, she didn't say anything at all. Somehow, her scared panting was worse than anything she could have said.

I realized then that the hallway was freezing. If the lights had been on I probably would have been able to see my breath. There was also this godawful stink that was nothing like the smell of the landfill outside. This was a rot smell. Like road kill baking on the highway.

I hugged my arms up over my chest and tried not to think about what the cold and the stink could mean. At that point, I was ready to close my eyes, curl up in a ball on the ground and play a nice round of "If-I-can't-see-it-it-can't-see-me."

That was when the lift doors opened. Noodle didn't waste a second. She dove inside with a cool little tuck and roll maneuver the second they were open wide enough for her to fit. I was so screwed up I probably would have just stood there admiring her action movie-worthy skills if she hadn't reached out and dragged me inside after her. (Really, I remember thinking, _Well, if I tried that I'd break my neck. She should be a stunt double or something.)_

I turned around to look back out at the dark corridor. Even on a good day, the lights in the lift aren't very bright. Running on the backup generator, they were about as good as a flashlight on dying batteries. It was still enough for me to see something hobbling towards us.

I caught a flash of blue-gray skin. A leg missing a foot. A ring of bruised, black flesh around a twisted neck. Then the doors slid shut and it was just me and Noodle staring at each other with our eyes as big around as tires.

It seems like we stood there like that for a long time. It was probably only a couple of seconds, but it _seemed _liked years before I managed to squeak, "So…what are we going to do now?"

She blinked. She'd gotten sickish gray patches under her eyes, but the color started to come back as she said, "The lift is the only thing that runs on the backup generator. We need to turn the other lights back on manually."

"How do we do that?"

"We need to go to the fuse box."

"Where's that?"

"I think it's in the car park."

I chewed my lip. I'd kind of been hoping she would say something like, "Why, it's right here in the lift, 2D, and all you have to do to fix it is blow it a kiss."

"W-what if we run into another of those…." I stopped there. I really didn't know what to call the thing I'd seen scuffling towards us in the corridor. Monster? Zombie? Scary McScary demon from hell?

Noodle seemed to get what I meant anyways. "Murdoc and Russel are down there. Maybe we will see them instead." She punched the button for the ground floor and down we went.

I was half-expecting to see a crowd of those awful things to be waiting for us when the lift doors opened. (That's always how it happens in the movies. The soon-to-be-dead sorority girl thinks she's escaped the zombie or the chainsaw-wielding psycho only to round a corner and _SLASH! CRASH! _She's dead.) I was very happy to see an empty corridor instead. (I guess that sort of thing only happens to sorority girls.)

We crept off the lift. The doors slid shut behind us, leaving us in pitch black. I really wanted to just turn around and get back on the lift. You know, just to make sure there wasn't a fuse box in there that needed a kiss. Instead, I clamped my hands onto Noodle's shoulders and the two of us started inching down the dark hall. Maybe it's because we were so quiet, or maybe we just got lucky, but we made it to the end of the corridor without bumping into anything nasty.

I'd been thinking that the car park would be as dark as the corridor. It wasn't. I guess that shouldn't have been so surprising, since that whole morning was pretty much one big pile of unexpected with a twist of nightmare fuel for good measure. Still, it was a nice surprise to see Murdoc's Winnebago all lit up like a Christmas tree. A debauched Christmas tree with a Satanist living inside it, but for Kong, that's really not so bad.

With all the light from the Winnebago, I was sure that Noodle wouldn't have any trouble seeing to fix the fuse box. (Yes, Noodle. If I can't even work a coffee machine properly do you really think I would know what to do about a busted fuse box?) I'm sure she _wouldn't_ have had any trouble—if we had made it to the fuse box, that is.

We were about halfway across the car park when Noodle stopped walking. She didn't say anything, but I still had my death grip on her shoulders and the way her muscles went tense was enough to tell me that there was something I probably didn't want to see somewhere very close by.

I didn't want to look.

I really, really didn't want to look.

I _tried _not to look.

I looked.

There were three of them. I'd thought nothing could be worse than seeing one of those things, but I was wrong. Seeing three was worse. So, so much worse. At least with one you knew where all the messed up limbs ended. With three standing in a huddle along the far wall I couldn't even tell which broken leg and which twisted arm belonged to which.

I wanted to stop looking, but something about the hurky-jerky way they were moving towards us made it hard to tear my eyes away. I opened my mouth to scream. The only thing that came out was a wheezing noise that sounded a lot like somebody had punched me in the gut.

Noodle backed away from the approaching monstrosities until she bumped into me. I stumbled and took a couple of shaky steps back, too. With my legs about as steady as a half-set pudding, I was moving just as jerkily as the things that were coming towards us.

There was a shuffling noise; a funny scraping sound like a wet bag of cement dragging over concrete—two more of them, coming at us from behind. I have no idea how they managed to get around behind us so fast. I wasn't too worried about how they got there, though. The only thing that I was really thinking about right then was that the only way for us to get to the door that led back to the corridor or the door that led to my room next to it would have been to go right through them. _(Slash! Crash! We're dead.)_

We couldn't go forward. We couldn't go back. There was only one place for us to go, and it was almost as bad as the things that were jerking along after us. With Noodle a couple of steps ahead of me, I started running for Murdoc's lit-up Winnebago as fast as my numb, half-set pudding legs would go.

* * *

-Murdoc-

* * *

My morning just kept getting better and better. When I first woke up, all I'd had to worry about was shutting 2D up before his obnoxious screaming made my hangover any worse. In less than twenty minutes, I'd had to contend with a ruined demo tape (which _had _had some usable material on it, in spite of the fact that 99 percent of it was utter shit), a mentally traumatized lead guitarist, a power outage, and a sudden infestation of creatures most people would probably claim crawled straight out of the fires of hell. (Of course, I knew better than that. Having been to hell from time to time, I can safely say that there was nothing quite like _that _down there.) In the midst of all of that, it's no wonder that my bitch of a hangover had gone about twenty shades worse.

I was well aware of the fact that I had to deal with the ruined tape, the traumatized guitarist, the black out, and the twisted creatures from Satan knows where, but with my head throbbing like an egg about to crack I was in no condition to handle any of it. I was so bad off I would have nicked a couple of 2D's mind numbing painkillers if I'd have known where the stupid idiot kept them. As it was, I had to settle with a handful of expired aspirin from an ancient bottle stashed in my Winne.

Russel frowned as I shook the pills out of the bottle and said, "You know, you shouldn't take aspirin for a hangover, Muds."

I glared at him. I have no idea what compelled him to follow me into the Winne when we ran away from the twitching monstrosities in the instrument room. (To be perfectly frank, I have no idea how he managed to fit through the door.) "I will take whatever the damn hell I please and if you have a problem with that you're free to—"

A frantic pounding on the Winnebago's door drowned out the word "leave."

I jumped, smacked my head on the toilet unit's low ceiling, and scattered my handful of pills all over the floor. Russel didn't jump—a lucky thing, because if he had he probably would have tipped the whole damn trailer. Instead, much to my horror, he started forward to open the door.

I stumbled out of the toilet as quickly as I could and parked myself between him and the door. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I hissed. "Planning to let those things in here for a party?"

"It's D and Noodle, man."

"I know that," I snarled. (Because there was no way that I, Murdoc Faust Niccals, sex god, bass slayer, and let's not forget mastermind behind the world's greatest band ever, was rattled enough to mistake my own guitarist and lead singer for flesh hungry abominations out to defile my admittedly incredible body and swallow my Satan-stained soul. Absolutely not.)

"Then what the hell is your problem?"

I shrugged. "Well, _something_ out there is making them scream, isn't it? Now, I'm asking you, do you really want it in here with—_umf!"_ I was cut off by one of Russel's ham-sized arms connecting with my face hard enough to knock me off my feet.

When the door flew open, Noodle was kind enough to notice me lying half concussed on the floor and jump over me. Dullard—ever so predictable dullard—did nothing of the sort. We ended up in a tangle, him jamming his elbow into my kidney and screaming, "Close the door, close the door!" in my face. His hands were scrabbling, probably trying to find the ground so he could stand up, but the stupid bugger was so hysterical he didn't seem to realize that he was slapping my face and shoulders instead. He even managed to land a hit to my mouth that split my lip wide open.

_That _was certainly enough to shake me out of my concussed stupor. "Damn it, 2D!" I snapped, and gave him a push that sent him flying. As soon as he landed on the ground, he rolled over to do a ridiculous backwards, belly-up crawl away from the door until he was pressed up against the wall opposite.

I stood up, poked at my lip with my tongue, and tasted copper. _Still bleeding, _I thought. _2D, you stupid bastard. I'm going to end up with one of those ugly scabs on my lip that looks like a big, black beetle poking out your mouth._ Before I could start thinking about how I was going to get my revenge on him for ruining my perfect visage, Noodle tugged on my arm and whispered, "Murdoc, _look."_

If it had been anybody else at any other time under any other circumstances that would not have been enough to save 2D from the kick in the ribs I'd been planning to deliver to him. But this was my steady as a rock guitarist sounding scared enough to burst into tears in a dark and aberration-infested Kong. Even in my pukey, hungover, brain throbbing state, I knew that I couldn't ignore whatever it was that she was afraid of if I planned on getting out of the situation alive, so I decided to leave 2D's kick in the ribs for later and turned around to see what she wanted.

She was standing at the door, holding back the curtain over the little window there so I could see out into the car park. At first I didn't see anything, even though the light from my Winnebago was bright enough to light up most of the car park. Then I noticed something slinking around in one of the shadowy areas outside the circle of direct light—a humanoid thing with all of its limbs hanging at wrong angles, like a Picasso painting come to life. Then I saw another. And another, and…ten. There were ten of those monstrosities hobbling around in the shadows, dragging about on the ground, lying on the ground in impossibly twisted, twitching heaps.

I stared out at the scene for a good ten seconds. Ninety seconds later, I was hunched over the toilet retching with a lovely aftertaste of stomach acid tainted with sweet wine. (What can I say? After the demo tape, the fight, the running for my life, and 2D's hysterical assault, my stomach was completely knackered. At that point even a mildly ugly person would have been enough to set it off.)

When I finally emerged from the toilet, I was sweaty, shaky, but feeling more clear-headed than I'd felt all morning. Russel gave me a disgusted look and nodded towards Noodle as if to say, _Do you always have to set such a poor example? _I rolled my eyes and thought, _Yeah, like your disgusting eating habits are any better._ (Honestly, I don't know what he was on about. It's not as though Noodle hadn't seen all of us drunk or hungover at some point or another, and she didn't seem half as put out as he was.) Then I cleared my throat and said, "Well then. I vote we get the hell out of here, go stay in a hotel for a couple of days and stock up on some heavy artillery to help us take care of our…ah…little problem."

"Huh," Russel grunted. "When did you have the Winnebago fixed?"

I frowned. The Winnebago hasn't run properly since that bastard Dr. Wurzel got his grubby paws on it—something about a broken carburetor or the like. I'd been meaning to have it looked at for some time, but… "I didn't."

"Then what's your plan for getting us out of here?"

"I have no idea—hey, don't you _dare _give me that look, lards! I can assure you, if I'd had the _slightest clue _that we would end up in a situation like this I'd have had the damn carburetor or starter or whatever the hell it is fixed. I'd have had a couple of rocket launchers installed on the roof and kept a stockpile of flamethrowers in the glove box! It's not like _you're _coming up with any bright ideas, so unless you've got something useful to say, you can keep your mouth shut or get the fuck out of myWinnebago! Got it?"

"Yeah," he growled. "I got it, all right."

I was about to deliver a particularly caustic and detailed response about where, exactly, he could shove it, but before I could say anything, Noodle said, "Maybe we can take the Geep."

I gave Russel a glare to let him know that yes, I had noticed his sarcasm, and no, I damn well didn't appreciate it. Then I turned to Noodle and said, "Sorry, love, but going out there with those things skulking around would be tantamount to suicide."

"2D is a horror film expert," she answered. "Maybe he has some idea of how these things work so that we _can _get to the Geep."

2D with an idea? Laughable as it was, we were in dire straits and I'm sure you know what they say about desperate times. I turned to look at my mentally challenged singer. He was still curled up in a pathetic ball with his back pressed up against the wall looking even dopier than usual. Trying not to roll my eyes too much, I half-mumbled, "OK, brain ache. Tell us what you've got." _This ought to be good…._

He gave me a blank look, as if he had managed to miss our entire conversation. (Something that was entirely possible, I might add. This _is _2D we're talking about here.) "Huh?"

This time I didn't try to hide my eye roll. "Your horror films!" I snapped. "Even _you _have to have gleaned somethinguseful from all the hours you waste watching that junk. So tell us: how do characters in your horror films get out of situations like this?"

He shut his eyes and kept them closed so long I was starting to believe that actually thinking about anything had been so difficult for him that his brain just decided to crap out and go to sleep instead. (Again, entirely possible when dealing with 2D.) When he finally did open his eyes again, he whispered, "They usually don't get out. I mean…most of the time everybody ends up dead or…or turned into zombies or something. Pretty much the only time anybody does get away is when the zombies are too busy eating some poor bloke to notice."

"A distraction, eh?" I stretched my mouth into a smoldering grin. "Thanks for volunteering, 2D."

"M-me?" he squeaked in a voice that sounded closer to a pubescent crack than anything that ought to come from a man who sings for a living. "But I…I don't—I mean, I _can't…."_

"No way," Russel growled. "That's not happening, Muds."

I gaped at him. I hadn't expected 2D to get the joke, but I've got to admit I'd had a little more faith in Russel's brain power. Apparently, he was as thick in the head as 2D.

I was still wondering whether I should even bother explaining that I was joking when Noodle said, "We don't need a distraction. They are gone."

Well. That was surprising. Russel and I hurried to look out the windows nearest us to see if it was true. (2D just stayed on the floor like an idiot. Not that you needed to know.) I stared out into the dark car park for a long time, keeping an especially keen eye out for anything twitching or limping around in the more shadowed areas. I was sure that she was mistaken. She _had _to be mistaken. But, try as I did, I couldn't see anything unusual.

After a long silence, Russel whispered, "I don't know, man. Think we should we make a run for it?"

The Geep wasn't far—100…200 meters, tops. A distance even _I_ could run, worn-out, nicotine-abused lungs be damned. "Yeah," I whispered back. "Let me grab the keys."

I stepped over 2D and squeezed around Russel to get back to my bedroom and snatch the key to the Geep off my bedside table. I took a couple of steps towards the kitchen, then stopped and decided to at least throw on a shirt and a pair of jeans. (While I'm not particularly averse to going out in public in my knickers, there was just something damned undignified at the thought of _dying _in them.)

Once I was properly dressed, I went back to the kitchen to find Russel and Noodle waiting by the door ready to go and 2D still sitting on the ground like a lump. He didn't respond when I prodded him with the toe of my expensive Cuban heeled shoe. I gave Noodle and Russel and look that said, _If I'm the one that has to get him on his feet neither of you are going to be very happy about it._

Russel stepped forward with a sigh, wrapped one of his massive hands around 2D's wrist, and hauled him to his feet. "Come on, D, we're getting out of here." He frowned when 2D didn't say anything and asked, "Hey, you OK, man?"

2D blinked and the spaced-out look in his eyes went away (or rather, diminished back to his usual level of vacancy). "Yeah," he answered. "Just scared is all."

"Yeah, so am I," Russel muttered.

"Me, too," said Noodle.

They all turned to me as if they expected me to say, "Me three" like we were in some campy kid's movie. They must have been absolutely crazy if they seriously thought I was going to say something that stupid. Instead, I said, "Come on; let's _go _already!"

Russel nodded to Noodle. She opened the door. For a couple of seconds we all just stood there staring out at the empty car park. (I don't know about them, but I wasn't about to be the first one to go traipsing out the door to test the waters. Unfortunately, Russel was too big for me to kick out the door without breaking my foot, and I couldn't get a clear shot at 2D with Russel standing between us.) Finally, Noodle jumped outside and started running.

2D and Russel were quick to follow—an absolutely daft maneuver if you ask me. I waited a good five seconds after they took off just to make sure something wasn't trolling around out of sight waiting to pick us off once we got outside. Russel noticed me standing there in the door and yelled, "Come _on, _Muds!"

I had to bite my tongue to resist the urge to answer, "I'm coming, cannon fodder!" as I started after them.

My shoes were pounding on the paved ground, echoing off the concrete walls and ceiling loud enough to raise the dead. Russel's thundering footsteps were even louder than mine, and I could even hear 2D's feet scraping on the ground every couple of steps. If there _was _anything out there, it had to know we were out, exposed with nothing to keep them away.

I heard Noodle shout, "Murdoc, _hurry!" _Looked up, saw her already sitting safe in the Geep, but with her face twisted into a horrified grimace. Something brushed my back. I have no idea what it was because I knew better than to waste time turning around to look. Instead, I reached back and slapped away something that felt like dirty, wet rubber. Then I was running, leaping into the driver's seat, trying to fit the damn key into the ignition slot with my hand shaking like a tweaker on a bad trip. (Of course, Noodle kicking the back of my seat, Russel yelling "Get us out of here, Muds; get us the _hell _out of here" in my ear, and 2D slapping my arm and gibbering, _"Go, go" _didn't help matters.)

I glanced up into the rearview mirror and cursed under my breath in languages I didn't even realize I knew. They were there, all right. All ten of them, closing fast.

The key finally slipped into the ignition slot. I turned it once and the engine gave a sick little cough; twice and it burped to life. With the car in gear, I slammed the accelerator to the floor and we shot forward. The engine sputtered, threatening to die out. I whacked the steering wheel and screamed some sort of wordless threat and lo and behold, the engine caught and we were roaring forward—until I noticed a second little herd of the damned things standing directly in our path.

I pulled a hard left to avoid running into them. (They didn't look sturdy enough to stand up to a head-on collision with the Geep, but for all I knew those suckers would release some sort of metal-eating acid, or somehow manage to get caught up in the axels and bring the whole damn car to a screeching halt.) There were screams from Noodle, 2D, and Russel. I shouted a belated warning to "Hold on, damn it!"

Then I heard Russel yell, "Oh, _shit! _D!"

I glanced at the empty seat next to me with and, with a sense of dawning horror, looked into the rearview mirror in time to see 2D come skidding to a stop face down on the ground about twenty meters behind us. I couldn't tell whether he was unconscious or whether he was just addled by the fall, but either way, I didn't see him move before the group of creatures I'd swerved to avoid blocked him from view.

Something he'd said back in the Winnebago ran through my head then: _"Pretty much the only time anybody does get away is when the zombies are too busy eating some poor bloke to notice."_ My mind was already made up. I pressed the accelerator down as far as it would go.

"What the hell—Muds, what the hell are you doing?" Russel shouted.

I didn't answer. Not like I had to. Even dullard himself would have been able to figure it out for himself.

In the rearview I saw Noodle's mouth drop open. "No!" she screamed. "2D!"

I saw her squirming in the seat, twisting to put her foot up on the seat. "Keep her the fuck in the car!" I yelled.

A couple of seconds later she was screaming, "Russel, let go of me! We can't leave him here—we have to go back! Let me go! 2D!"

Russel was struggling to keep her in her seat, but winning. (If the Geep hadn't been bouncing over all the potholes in the car park at top speed, and if she hadn't been so hysterical, he wouldn't have stood a chance.) He was glaring at me in the rearview mirror and it was pretty obvious that he was mad as hell, but he didn't say anything because he knew damn well that I was right.

We came rip-roaring out of the car park as fast as the Geep could go. The mid-morning sun hit my bloodshot eyes like needles dipped in acid. I didn't even blink. Instead, I kept the gas pedal stomped to the floor until we blazed through the gates at the end of the grounds and onto the main road with Noodle screaming at us the whole way.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Well look at that—an update that _didn't _take three years, and a long'un to boot. Thanks again to everybody who is reviewing this and putting it on your favorites and alert lists! It's always nice to get such great encouragement. And…erm…2D fans, don't kill me (yet)!

Next chapter: All Alone


	6. All Alone

CHAPTER SIX

* * *

-2D-

* * *

Living in Kong is a lot like living in a horror film. I mean, we've got zombies prowling around outside 24/7, demons in the toilets, Russel's creepy taxidermy projects, brains in the fridge (Don't ask me who eats them. I have no idea, but it seems like they're always fresh), possession, Noodle's Miyazaki films, a portal to hell down in the bunker, Murdoc…and that's just the stuff I remember. I know those things all sound scary, but none of them are too upsetting once you get used to them. (Except maybe Murdoc when he gets into one of his moods. But that's a whole different story.)

I wish I could say that all the practice I'd got living in Kong was enough to prepare me for when things went from creepy to completely out of control. I wish I could tell you that I rolled to my feet with a stunning battle cry after I fell out of the Geep and single-handedly fended off the crowd of monsters around me. Or maybe that I went down fighting in a blaze of glory. Or that I at least died with dignity. I didn't do any of those things, though.

At first I was so dizzy from the fall that all I could do was lie there on the ground. In fact, I think I must have blacked out for a couple of seconds, because the first thing I remember after I hit the ground was having this massive headache. Big waves of hurt that throbbed all through the left side of my head like a heartbeat.

For a couple of seconds, all I wanted to do was take a triple dose of my painkillers and go hole up in bed until it went away. Then I realized that my face hurt, too, and that there was something hot and sticky and wet pasting my cheek against the ground. (I actually remember thinking, _Huh…never had a headache bad enough to make my face bleed. That's new.) _And _that's _when I heard a roaring noise; something important—_The Geep?_

I laid there for about two more seconds trying to remember what, exactly, about the Geep was so important through the unrelenting pounding in my head. Then it all clicked together—_(OH MY GOD THE GEEP!)—_and I realized with that pukey, gut-twisting sort of horror you feel when you're at the top of a roller coaster on a stomach full of alcohol and greasy carnival food that the roaring was getting farther away.

I had to get up. Even with my head still spinning from the fall, I knew I had to get up; had to at least try to get away before those things started eating my brains. I could hear them coming—shuffling sounds of dragging limbs, skin crackling like old leather, and an overpowering smell of rot that was so awful I felt tears behind my squeezed-shut eyes—but my body wouldn't move. No matter how nicely I asked my legs to kindly get me the hell out of there, they only response I could get out of them was a twitchy, tickling feeling. It was like my muscles were laughing at me, saying, "Sorry, mate, you're on your own for this one."

I _was_ on my own because Murdoc and Noodle and Russel weren't coming back to help. Of course they weren't coming back. I was the guy who gets killed off before the opening credits are even finished just to show how scary the monsters are. The hapless victim. The sacrificial lamb. The dupe. Except, I wasn't.

I'm not sure how long I laid there before I figured out I wasn't about to die. It seems like it was a long time, but time has a funny way of moving a lot slower when you're waiting to die. After a while, though, I realized that I was way past due for being torn to shreds, even if time was moving in slow motion.

I took my time deciding whether or not I should open my eyes and see why that was. On the one hand, looking at just one of those things was enough to turn me into a scared little puddle of shivering jelly, so I wasn't sure I would be able to handle it if I were to open my eyes to see ten or fifteen of them staring back at me. On the other hand, I _was _a teensy bit curious.

When I finally did crack an eye open, my whole body went limp and a couple of noises that sounded like a mix of sobbing and coughing bubbled up from my chest. There were no horrifying, brutalized creatures hovering over me. Whether they'd gone off after the Geep or whether they'd just disappeared, the car park was empty.

Slowly, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the dirty concrete ceiling. The left half of my face hurt where I'd sandpapered it against the ground. My head still hurt, too. I reached up and brushed a couple of blood-and-sweat-soaked strands of hair out of my face. My hands were shaking. I covered my face with them and mumbled, "Shit."

Even though I was alive at the moment (and as an added bonus, had all of my limbs, too), I knew that I was a walking zombie magnet with my face all smeared with blood. With zombies outside and apparently inside, too, that was a Very Bad Thing. Very Bad as in I was basically a dead man walking. Or, Even Worse Thing: a soon-to-be _undead _man walking. In fact, I was pretty sure that the only way I was getting out of there alive and in one piece would be if Murdoc, Russel, and Noodle suddenly decided to turn around and come get me out of there in the Geep. From the way they'd gone speeding off earlier, I kind of didn't think that was going to happen.

_Bunch of rotters, _I thought. _I should call them up and…and…._ "Wait," I whispered. _Calling them isn't a bad idea…and even if they won't come back I might be able to ring a taxi! Now where did I leave my cell phone?_

The last place I remembered using it was in my room. I frowned. My room is in the basement. Usually, that doesn't bother me. But everybody knows it's a bad idea to go down in the basement with the lights out and a pack of disturbing monsters puttering around doing God knows what. It's one of the golden rules of surviving horror movies—right up there with "don't investigate that funny noise outside" and "never get naked." Still, I figured I'd already broken enough survival rules by that point that breaking one more probably wasn't going to make much of a difference.

Luckily, it didn't. Not much of the light from Murdoc's Winnebago made it down to my room, but it was enough for me to see that the room was empty. No twisted monsters waiting to tear me apart. That was a Good Thing. After poking around for a while, I realized that there was no cell phone, either. That was a Not So Good Thing. I did find a flashlight lying in all the dust bunnies, dirty socks, and empty pill bottles under my bed—another Good Thing. A beam of steady, yellow light come on when I flipped the switch—an Even Better Thing.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself for finding something useful as I turned to head back up the stairs—and almost tripped over a little boy about half my height. I wasn't sure whether to classify that as a Good or Bad Thing. He looked like a regular scruffy little kid with a smudge of dirt on his cheek and big, dark eyes that made him seem about as threatening as Bambi. All those pointed to Not Bad Thing. But there was also the troublesome fact that he seemed to be glowing. That sort of pointed me more towards the Not Necessarily Bad But Definitely Not Good And Kind Of A Little Creepy, Too category.

"Er…hello," I said. "What are you doing in here?"

He just stared back at me without saying anything.

I smiled and knelt down so I was at his eye level to show him I didn't mean any harm and would he please not do anything more alarming than that creepy glowing trick? From that angle, I was able to see a ring of nasty, purply-black bruises around his neck. That was enough to wipe the smile off my face.

Something Noodle had said floated through my head at the sight of those marks. _"He is younger than I am, and he looks like a normal boy. I do not know his name; I think that he cannot speak. That is why I call him— _"Taro-kun," I muttered. "You're Taro-kun, aren't you?"

The kid didn't nod, but he didn't shake his head, either. He just kept staring at me like he was waiting for me to say something interesting.

I decided to go for broke and said, "I'm looking for my cell phone. Do you know where it is?"

That seemed to do the trick. The kid's face lit up with a big grin. (Not a creepy grin—that would have been Bad. This was a normal little kid grin—Good.) Then he turned around and started up the stairs to the car park. I scrambled to my feet and hurried after him. Even though I was moving as fast as I could, he was already out in the car park waiting next to the door that led back to the dark ground floor corridor by the time I made it to the top of the stairs.

"That way?" I squeaked. I didn't know where all the awful twitchy creatures had disappeared to, but as long as the car park was clear I really wasn't too keen on wandering through Kong and meeting up with them again. "Are you sure?"

Taro-kun just stared back at me, waiting.

"All right," I sighed and opened the door. Taro-kun slipped into the dark corridor without looking back.

I hesitated for a second. Then I remembered that I still had the flashlight so I'd be able to see where I was going, and if worse came to worst I could always use it to defend myself. (The thought that a flashlight was a pretty pathetic weapon did cross my mind, but you've got to admit that it was better than, say, a pillow or a feather duster.)

As it turned out, I didn't need the flashlight after all. The glow coming off Taro-kun was plenty bright enough for me to see by—so bright it almost hurt to look at him. I didn't have any trouble following him down the corridor, where he stopped in front of the lift and turned around to stare at me some more. I took that as his way of telling me to call the lift.

When the doors opened, I was surprised to see him walk inside like a normal person. Maybe it was the glowing, but I'd been thinking he'd go floating up through the ceiling and wait for me to reach the first floor. I was glad he didn't. My weird shit quota was already more than filled for that day, and I wasn't sure I was in any condition to handle any more.

The glow coming off Taro-kun toned down to the point that I could almost pretend he was a normal kid once we were standing inside the lift. Part of me wanted to ask him if he'd done that himself or if it just an automatic reaction to the flickering backup lights. Instead I said, "So why don't you talk? Does it have something to do with those marks on your neck?"

He shivered and stared hard at the ground. His face had that puckered look to it that kids get right before they start to cry. He didn't look at me again for the rest of the ride to the first floor. I felt bad for asking.

When the lift doors opened again, he started down the dark corridor in full-on glow mode again. We walked down to the end of the corridor. He stopped in front of the door that led to the kitchen. I pushed it open. We went inside.

With the sun glaring in through the windows, the kitchen was a lot brighter than the corridor had been. I got caught up in the doorway, blinking against the sizzling assault on my poor, vulnerable eyeballs. By the time my eyes got used to the light, Taro-kun was already standing by the counter at the far end of the room, giving me his "Look-how-adorable-I-am" little kid grin. And there was my cell phone, sitting on the counter right where I'd left it during our break from Murdoc's marathon recording session of doom the day before.

I smiled. "Hey, thanks!"

I was about halfway across the room when I felt the cold. For a couple of seconds I was so sure that it was one of the weird, zombie-like things that were after me that all I could do was stand there frozen in place thinking, _Oh God, oh God! They're going to rip me open and lap up my intestines like a big pile of Stu-pot flavored spaghetti! _You probably don't need me to tell you I was relieved when it turned out to be coming from the walk-in freezer instead.

That was a bit of a head-scratcher. The freezer was mostly Russel's territory. He was the one who had insisted we get it installed, and he would throw a fit if any of us didn't get the door closed properly after going inside. (Something to do with "preserving the integrity" of his taxidermy projects or something like that.) But now here it was hanging wide open.

I shook my head. _Russel's going to be completely pissed off, _I thought, and started forward to close the door. I made it about three steps before something shoved me from behind, sending me into a wobbly, try-not-to-fall-on-your-face dance that worked until I danced right into the open freezer.

The second my staggering feet hit the icy floor, I took a nosedive and ended up scrabbling around on the ground. I heard somebody yelling at me—a man's voice demanding to know what I was doing there and calling me so many nasty names I wasn't even sure what half of them meant. Somehow, I managed to turn around to face the door with my hands and feet sliding out from under me.

There was a big, blockish-looking man standing there. I barely had time to register the fact that he was the one yelling at me, the fact that Taro-kun was standing behind him with his face twisted into a shocked and slightly terrified expression, the fact that OH MY GOD THE MAN WAS CLOSING THE DOOR before the heavy, reinforced steel door clanged shut in my face.

"H-hey," I coughed. Tripping, slipping, sliding, I went over to the door and gave it a kick. "Hey! Let me out of here! You can't just…you can't…."

I wasn't really sure what to say after "you can't." I settled with giving the door another kick instead.

_Didn't Noodle say Taro-kun was the only male? Who was that? _I wondered. Then I shivered and hugged my arms up over my chest. It was cold enough in there to freeze the snot in your nose and all I had on was a pair of jeans and an old, cotton tee-shirt. I knew that it would be a Bad Thing if I didn't get out of there quickly.

I felt around on the door for any sort of emergency release. All I felt was a smooth layer of frost-dusted stainless steel. "No," I whispered. "No, no, no, no, no…."

The door was useless. I started feeling along the wall around the door. Nothing.

"Oh, come _on," _I groaned. _I can't freeze to death in a walk-in freezer! What would they put in the obituaries? Gorillaz vocalist dies of own stupidity? _I frowned at that thought. _Murdoc WOULD write that._

Starting to feel a little desperate, I started feeling above and below all the shelves, behind the paper-wrapped packages of meat, up on the ceiling. I'd almost made it all the way to the back of the freezer when I tripped over something that was lying on the ground. I went down hard, slamming my already aching head against the wall and landed sprawled out all over whatever it was I had tripped over. Judging by how big it was, I guessed it to be one of Russel's taxidermy projects.

"Ugh, owwww," I groaned. The thing I'd landed on was hard—frozen solid—and lumpy. Some of the pointier bits were jabbing into my stomach. It hurt. The knock to my head hadn't done my thrown-from-a-speeding-Geep-induced headache any favors, either. I wanted my pain pills, but the tin I always kept with me wasn't in my pocket. I didn't know whether it had fallen out down in the car park or whether I'd lost it when I was pushed into the freezer. I laid there shivering with Russel's taxidermy stuff poking me and my head throbbing and feeling all around very sorry for myself for a while.

Eventually, I got tired of the pieces of frozen dead animal jamming up against my stomach and decided to get up. (After all, it was just as easy to feel sorry for myself without being half-impaled, and probably a lot more comfortable, too.) My hand hit something hard, metal, and cylindrical as I worked to untangle myself from the stuff on the floor—the flashlight I'd brought with me from my room. I grabbed onto it the same way Russel grabs for the last piece of fried chicken: fast and desperate.

The flashlight had light. Light was Good. Light would make it a hell of a lot easier to find wherever that emergency latch pull or release lever was hiding. Yes, light was Very Good.

_OK, _I thought as I rolled off the lumpy pile of frozen meat. _I can call for help once I'm out of here. _I fumbled around for the power switch on the flashlight with fingers that were about at nimble as frozen fish sticks. _After I do that, maybe I can figure out what that guy who attack me was—_CLICK. I flipped the switch and my brain froze in mid-thought.

With the help of the flashlight, I could see that the pile of frozen taxidermy pieces I'd fallen on wasn't actually a pile of frozen taxidermy pieces at all. Instead of Russel's usual mix of perfectly preserved fuzzy, scaly, leathery, furry animal limbs, I saw hairless, bony arms and legs covered with gray-bleached skin and twisted around into mind-bending, impossible positions. I saw a hand with all its nails off. A long, brown-black slash mark that stretched from the right shoulder all the way down to the left hip. From what was left of the hair on its head, I could tell that it used to have blonde hair, that fake, white-blonde you only get from bleaching. And it had a face. That was the worst thing of all—the thing had an actual _face. _There were brownish smears of dried blood around its mouth and under its nose, but I could see staring, brown eyes, a snubbed nose, an eyebrow ring. It was the eyebrow ring that snapped me back to myself.

_Bad Thing! _my brain screamed. _Very, Very Bad Thing! Run, run, run, run, run, run, RUN! _I tried to stand up, slipped, landed on my bum and brushed up against the thing's frozen skin. I screamed and rolled away kicking at it to keep it from touching me again.

I managed to get to my hands and knees and half-crawled, half-dragged myself back to the door. The fact that the thing wasn't making any move to come after me did nothing me make me feel any better. My brain was short-circuiting with fear because the thing was _there _and I'd _touched _it and _OH HOLY SHIT I'D BEEN LAYING ON __**TOP **__OF IT!_

I was sucking in the sharp, lung-slicing frozen air in little hyperventilating gasps as I threw myself against the door over and over, begging and screaming, "LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! PLEASE—SOMEBODY PLEASE _GET ME OUT OF HERE!"_

* * *

-Noodle-

* * *

Anger is a powerful drug. Give in to it and you are rewarded with a terrible rush of strength, and things like fear and pain disappear. You are left free to do and say things you would never do or say when you are yourself because things like restraint and social rules do not exist in the grip of a blind rage. Even so, people who allow themselves to be consumed by anger are not strong. The anger controls them, driving them to do terrible things, and once it wears off all they are left with is something broken, miserable, empty.

I was so angry with Murdoc I was seeing red. My chest felt tight, as though it was packed with heavy steam and I felt feverish. The painful scene ran through my head every time I closed my eyes: the writhing horde of monstrosities closing in on 2D, who was lying motionless—helpless—on the ground; the unapologetic set of Murdoc's jaw as he accelerated; his barking order to keep me in my seat, preventing me from doing anything to help....

I wanted to break something. I wanted to kick and punch and jab at the punching bag that hung in my room back in Kong until it split open. When we checked into a room in a tiny, mostly abandoned motel off the side of the highway, I still wanted to scream, wanted to break all the windows in the room, wanted to tear apart all the sheets.

I knew I was in no condition to discuss what had happened. The moment we walked into our motel room, I hurried to the bathroom and locked the door behind me before Russel or Murdoc could say anything to me. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, I reached over and turned the hot water tap as far as it would go. The water was so hot that the room immediately began to fill with steam despite the efforts of the loud ventilation fan that roared on the ceiling.

I shut the water off when the tub was filled to near overflowing, but didn't get in. Instead, I stayed where I was on the edge with my back pressed up against the wet tile and my damp clothes hanging heavy against my body. My hands jumped into their familiar playing position—left hand up to finger the chords, right hand poised to strike the strings—but with no guitar to strum out my anger they moved up to cover my face instead.

I sat like that without moving for a very long time. At times, my body shook as I sat there, and I poured out a sigh that released a bit of the tightness in my chest. Little by little, I began to relax.

The bathwater had been cold for a long time when there was a knock on the door and Murdoc's voice said, "Noodle, I know you're angry with us, but you need to come out of there because Russel's bladder is going to burst if he can't have a piss."

I took my hands away from my face and was surprised to find that it was wet. I wanted to blame it on the steam, but the sweat had dried to a sticky film too long ago for me to pretend that it was anything besides what it was. _How long was I crying? _I wondered. _When did I start?_

Murdoc's voice came through the door again, more urgent than before: "Noodle! Did you hear me?"

I slid off of my perch on the edge of the bathtub, reached into the cold water and pulled up the plug. The water burbled loudly as I crossed the room and opened the door to find both Murdoc and Russel waiting for me. The both looked as though they wanted to talk with me. I kept my eyes on the ground as I pushed past Murdoc, but Russel put one of his arms out to stop me.

"Noodle, we—"

Smiling pleasantly up at him, I cut him off with, "The bathroom is open, Russel. Go ahead."

He sighed and exchanged a look with Murdoc, but moved aside to let me pass. I went out into the sleeping area of the suite and sat down on the foot of the bed that was situated farthest away from the bathroom. The television was on, but I could still hear Murdoc and Russel talking to each other in agitated whispers. I found the remote and edged the volume up until it was loud enough to drown out even the faintest hiss of their voices.

A few moments later, I heard the bathroom door close. Form the corner of my eye, I saw Murdoc sit down on the bed beside the one I was occupying. I didn't have to turn around to know he was looking at me; his eyes on my back were as sharp as a pair of gleaming Samurai Swords. I kept my attention focused on the television screen in front of me. A news program was on. The heavily made-up female newscaster was reporting about a serial killer who was still at large. I stared at her lipstick-smudged teeth as she said, "Although police investigators have few new leads in the case of the Essex Scalper, evidence collected from various crime scenes suggests that he is a white male in his middle thirties standing approximately six feet tall and weighing close to 170 pounds. Police have released this sketch of what they believe this man may look like and urge anybody with information that may lead to an arrest to ring their hotline number at the bottom of the screen."

I stared at the sketch and the phone number without seeing either of them. A few seconds later, Russel emerged from the bathroom, crossed the room, and stopped directly in front of the television, blocking it from view. I picked up the remote control, snapped off the TV, and took a deep breath. Murdoc and Russel both looked at me, waiting. Finally, I said, "We have to go back."

"Sorry, love. Not happening," said Murdoc.

"2D needs our help. We have to go back."

Russel sighed. "Look, I want to help D as much as you do, but we can't just go running back there without some kind of a plan."

"The plan is that we save 2D." I knew it was a ridiculously childish response, even as I said it, but I did not care. I found their apparent willingness to abandon their friend and fellow band mate much worse.

"I hate to break it to you, but at this point I doubt there's much of 2D left to save anyway," Murdoc said.

I turned on him with my hands balled into tight fists. "How can you say that?"

"What, am I the only one who saw how many of those things were after him? Don't tell me either of you think the poor bastard stood a snowball's chance in hell. But hey—better him than us, right?"

I shook my head. I had heard enough. Russel was stepping forward to say something, but I didn't care to hear it. I rolled off the bed and pushed past him on my way to the door.

Russel raised his eyebrows and asked, "Where are you going?"

"I am going back."

Murdoc snorted. "Well that's fine and dandy, but I'm not setting foot on Kong's grounds until I've got myself a couple of high-grade AK47's and some extra-potent alcohol in me."

"You do not have to come."

I was already reaching for the doorknob when he said, "And how are you planning to get back without the Geep? We're quite a ways from Kong, if you hadn't noticed."

"I can walk."

A smothering silence followed this reply, so heavy that I could feel it pressing close against my face, choking me. I could not breathe. I had to get out. I snatched at the door, yanking it open, and was halfway outside when Russel said, "Noodle, wait."

I turned around to find him looking down at the ground like a chastened little boy. He shuffled his feet before taking his gaze off the ground to look at me. Then he sighed and said, "I'll drive us back. Toss me the keys, Muds."

"Hmph. Like hell."

"What? Why not? What the hell is your problem?"

Murdoc folded his arms over his chest. "My _problem _is that last I checked, you don't have an international driver's license, and I'm buggered if I'm going to have my drummer thrown in jail when I've got an album to record."

Russel's face twisted into a scowl and his voice took on a dangerous edge as he said, "Murdoc—"

"Ah, ah, ah, Russ, you didn't let me finish," Murdoc interrupted. "I was _going _to say that I would drive. You know, just to make sure that you don't get your fat arse thrown into prison."

Despite my efforts to keep my face a stern mask, I felt the corners of my mouth pull into a ghost of a smile as Murdoc came to join us at the door. For the first time in a long time, I was at peace. It felt _right _that we were returning—all three of us, together. I no longer had a reason to fear that I had lost my mind because I knew that what I had been seeing was real. More importantly, I knew that what was real could be fought.

_Please be all right, 2D. We are coming._

**

* * *

**

Author's Notes:

Wow, two updates in the same month. I'm on a roll! A big thank you to all of the awesome people who are adding this story to favorites and alert lists, and writing great reviews—you guys make my day!

Next chapter: Into the Fire


	7. Into the Fire

CHAPTER SEVEN

* * *

-Russel-

* * *

Murdoc isn't exactly known for his safety-conscious driving habits, but to say he was driving recklessly on the way back to Kong would be an understatement. We were already screaming along at twice the speed limit before we even reached the studio grounds, and when we flew through the gates, he swerved off the winding road that meandered across the grounds to take the more direct route through the graveyard instead. The Geep clanked over anything in our path, leaving a trail of gnarled tree roots and broken tombstones behind us.

Usually, I try to discourage Murdoc from running over any gravestones if it can be helped. (It's not just out of respect for the people's graves that are desecrated—it's also terrible for the suspension on the Geep.) Sitting in the back of the Geep and speeding towards a horror-infested Kong, I was too keyed up to care.

The others looked to be as nervous as I felt. Murdoc was hunched low over the wheel and staring straight ahead with all the intensity of a bomber pilot. Beside me, Noodle was sitting with her eyes fixed on the back of Murdoc's seat, but I could tell her mind was miles away. Her hands were gripping the seatbelt so tight I could see all the muscles and sinews in her wrists standing out like thick cords. Looking at them, I couldn't help but think, _What the hell are we doing? We've got no plan of attack, no weapons…we don't even know if D is still alive or if we're just looking for a body._

I shook my head. Once we'd decided to go back to Kong, the only thing that seemed to matter was getting there as quickly as possible. There had been no time for plans, no time for gathering up weapons. We all knew that the longer we waited the worse off 2D was bound to be. More importantly, I knew that in my case (and most likely, Murdoc's case, too), the longer we waited to go the more likely I was to lose my nerve. Even so, knowing we were running in blind made me feel twitchy. It felt like we were just _asking _for something to go wrong. Predictably, it didn't take long before something did.

It started when the Geep gave a sputtering cough. A few seconds later, there was another sputtering sound, louder than the first, and accompanied by a bone-jarring lurch that threw me into my seatbelt hard enough to hurt. While I regained my breath, I heard Murdoc snarling something under his breath as he beat the steering wheel with the flat of his palm.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Nothing; we're fine!" he snapped. Then he gave the steering wheel another whack and yelled, "Come _on!_ _Move!"_

The Geep juddered along for another couple hundred yards. Then it gave final sickly wheeze, another lurch, and rolled to an abrupt stop with the bumper pressed up against a half-toppled gravestone.

There was a very long, very uncomfortable silence. A hoarse crow call echoed through the dead air from somewhere off in the landfill. Grumbling under his breath, Murdoc reached for the keys that were still dangling in the ignition and gave them a vicious, desperate twist, but the Geep didn't even offer up one of its sickly little coughs in response. Murdoc groaned and seemed to deflate, slumping down over the wheel. Noodle and I shared a wide-eyed horrified look. Then I cleared my throat and said, "Murdoc, did you check the gas?"

His posture went rigid, as though somebody had jabbed him with a Taser gun. "Of course I checked the gas!" he snapped. "Who do you think I am? 2D? Some cheeky little bastard must have siphoned it while we were at that hotel just so they could say 'Oooh look at meee! I've got a big bucketful of petrol that used to belong to the Gorillaz, aren't I just so clever?' Mark my words; I am going to sue that damn hotel!"

"So now it's the hotel's fault you forgot to check to check the gas gauge."

With the veins in his neck bulging, he screamed, "I DIDN'T FORGET!"

"Hey, I'm just saying-" I trailed off when I noticed Noodle tugging at the sleeve of my shirt with one hand and making frantic chopping motions with her other that clearly indicated that she wanted us both to shut up. I lowered my voice down to a whisper and said, "What's up?"

She nodded at a point off to my left. I turned around to look. There was a horde of zombies creeping towards the Geep. Of course there was a horde of zombies creeping towards the Geep. Our day so far had been a textbook example of Murphy's Law, so it wasn't surprising that Murdoc's furious ranting had attracted the attention of a brainless, flesh-eating horde of the undead.

On the bright side, they weren't the abominations that were stalking the halls of Kong. These were the average, run-of-the-mill zombies that had been hanging around the studio grounds since long before any of us ever set foot in the place. Considering the gruesome alternative, I was almost relieved to see the big, dumb things that were shambling towards us. On a more worrisome note, there was a fair number of them—more than we were equipped to deal with—and they seemed to be more agitated than usual.

"Remind me again, how many times have I told you desecrating the zombie-infected graveyard would come back to bite us in the ass?" I muttered.

"Oh, sure, because you say that _all the time_," Murdoc hissed back. Noodle jabbed me in the ribs and kicked the back of Murdoc's seat, prompting him to say, "Right. Shall we run like hell, then?"

I didn't even bother with an answer. Instead, I stood up, climbed out of the Geep, and hit the ground running as fast as I could go. Murdoc was right behind me—I could hear him huffing for breath as we weaved between the crooked rows of gravestones. Noodle was ahead of both of us, and nimbly vaulting over any headstone in her way with the grace of a seasoned athlete.

We were near the edge of the graveyard when things got ugly. The headstones in that corner of the cemetery were so old they were worn down to crumbly little stubs of stone that were hard to see and even harder to avoid. I'd had to cut my already lagging pace down to a crawl to avoid breaking my ankle on one of those treacherous lumps of stone, and if the heavy, smoker's lungs wheeze behind me was any indication, Murdoc wasn't faring much better. Noodle was still moving fast, but even she seemed to be stepping more gingerly. She'd gotten so far ahead that I'd resorted to thinking, _Just keep her in sight. That's all that matters; just keep her in sight._

I was still repeating that mantra to myself when I heard a scuff of leather Cuban-heeled shoe against stone, followed by a squawked swear that was clipped short by a sound that anybody who's lived in Kong would recognize in an instant: the thud of a body hitting the ground. Murdoc was down. With a horde of zombies hot on our heels, there was a good chance he'd be dead before he ever got a chance to get up.

I could have just kept running. That would have been the smart thing to do; let him keep the zombies occupied so I could make a clean getaway. He'd done the same to 2D back in the car park and part of me was itching to give him a taste of his own medicine. But even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I couldn't do it; knew that I was _better _than that, even if Murdoc could do it without batting an eye.

I turned around—and found myself looking into two sets of beady red eyes: two zombies, close enough I could count the hairs on their rotting heads. They were both reaching for me. The less decomposed of the two was champing its teeth at me like an angry bear, revealing a mouthful of yellow, bloodstained teeth.

My arms came up in a knee-jerk reaction to put something between them and me. It was a useless gesture. Whether they got me in the arm or whether it was in the neck, all it would take was one bite and my flesh would putrefy, my internal organs would rot, and I would be shambling along beside them after the next unlucky idiot who came wandering through the cemetery. Of course, that was if they didn't just tear me apart. The think ropes of drool that were pouring down their chins suggested that there wasn't going to be enough of me left to shamble.

I took a step back. My foot came down on something rough that crumbled away when I put my weight on it—an overgrown grave. I knew I was a dead man if I fell, but my knee was buckling and I was going down with the zombies looming over me. I closed my eyes, but I could still smell their foul breath as they leaned in for that first lethal bite.

And that was when Noodle flew by me in a blur of kicking feet and jabbing fists. She hit the zombie nearest to me with a devastating blow to the chest that sent it staggering into its companion, and both of them tumbled to the ground. There were more coming, but she was already crouched into a deadly fighting stance. I knew that she would make short work of anything that got too close. There was only one thing I could do to help her, and that was to stay out of the way.

Murdoc was still on the ground, and skittering along on his hands and knees with a zombie right behind him. It was so close its outstretched arms were sweeping through the air above him, forcing him to stay down or risk being caught.

I saw it make a grab for him and yelled, "Look out, Muds!" I don't know whether he heard my warning or whether he'd noticed the threat on his own, but he threw himself to the left and aimed a kick at the zombie's leg. The zombie must have been especially decomposed because the leg tore away at the knee with a squealch of rotten tendon and muscle. Awkward with the sudden change in its center of gravity, the zombie fell to the ground right beside Murdoc, who was still struggling to get up.

I ran for them, picking up a big chunk of stone that had crumbled off of a nearby grave and yelling, "Hang on, Muds!" as I went. The zombie had him by the back of the shirt by the time I got there. Murdoc was writhing on the ground wild-eyed as he kicked at it and tried to twist free. Screaming, I brought the slab of stone down with everything I had. The zombie's head split open like a melon. Rotten, brown brain matter oozed from the wound like lumpy chocolate pudding. The smell was absolutely horrible. I tossed the rock aside to clamp my hands over my nose.

There was a disgusted groan from underneath the unmoving body, and then Murdoc wiggled out. "Damn it, Russel," he snapped. "I've got brains smeared all down the back of my shirt."

I frowned. "Gee, thanks for saving my life, Russ. Oh, no problem, Murdoc. After all, what kind of person would leave somebody behind to get torn apart by a horde of hungry undead?"

"Oh, if you even _start _about what happened in the car park with 2D…." He trailed off and plucked something off the back of his shirt. It was a severed, decomposing hand. Apparently, the zombie had held on so tight that its connective tissues had given out before its grip had. Murdoc went pale at the sight of that gray-skinned hand. He shuddered and threw it at the zombie that was lying dead on the ground. "Come on," he muttered. "Let's get out of here."

I turned around to find Noodle and said, "Come on, Noodle, we're—Jesus!"

I'd known that Noodle was more than capable of handling herself, but it was still a shock to see her sitting atop a pile of no less than seven unmoving zombies, swinging her legs back and forth and smiling sweetly. At my shout, she waved down to the two of us and said, "I think these are all of the zombies that were chasing us. We should be safe now."

She jumped to the ground, light as a cat and said, "Come on. We still need to help 2D."

* * *

-Murdoc-

* * *

Our dear little Noodle had dealt with the zombies so effectively that not even the dumbest, most brain-dead ones didn't bother us on our way to Kong after our little mishap in the cemetery. The girl weighs less than 100 pounds and has a face that's so cute it'll rot your teeth out, but she can be quite the little hell raiser when she puts her mind to it. (If you find the idea of a war machine with a deceptively cute button nose disturbing, then you, my friend, fail to recognize potential when it's staring you in the face. Just thinking about the level of destruction she's capable of gives me a warm, tingly feeling. Of course, she's still afflicted with that troublesome thing some people call a "moral compass." A few more years around good old Uncle Mudsy ought to sort that out. Until then, all that power is just a lot of wasted potential.)

Russel and Noodle seemed to think that it was cause for celebration when we made it to Kong safely. I tolerated their good cheer until Russel's solicitations for high fives started to grate on my nerves. Then I said, "Oh, yes. We've gotten away from the regular sort of zombie all safe and in one piece just so we can lock ourselves in here with a pack of even more disturbing monsters. What a relief."

"Buzzkill," Russel grumbled. "I bet you didn't even notice that the lights are back on."

I rolled my eyes at that. Of course I'd noticed that the lights were back in working order. I was sorely tempted to point out that the only good they would do us would be to give us a clearer look at the horrors that were currently stalking the halls of our humble abode. Before I could do that, Noodle said, "Where is 2D?"

I left off thinking about how to kill Russel's annoying optimism to give the fully-lit car park a good once-over. There was no sign of my empty-headed vocalist anywhere.

"Maybe he got away," Russel doubtfully said.

"Yeah," I muttered. "Or maybe this was just a big, suicidal waste of time."

Russel seemed to take offense at my highly sensible remark. (I have no idea why. Given the circumstances, which scenario would you have thought to be more likely?) "Look, man," he said. "All I'm saying is—"

"Ah!" exclaimed Noodle. "Taro-kun!"

That was enough to shut me and Russel right the hell up. We both snapped our attention to her. She was staring at a point several feet in front of us with the sort of smile you might see on somebody's face when they are greeting an old friend, but I didn't see anybody there. I glanced over at Russel to see if he was having the same problem. From the baffled expression on his face, I figured it was safe to assume that he was.

Noodle turned around to look at us, all cavity-inducing smiles. "Taro-kun is here! Can you see him now?"

Russel and I exchanged an uncomfortable look. I don't know about him, but I didn't particularly want to be the one to inform her that no, we couldn't see her imaginary friend and even though we believed he was there she still looked batshit crazy talking to an empty space.

Russel finally said, "Do you think he might know what happened to D?"

"I do not know. Let me ask him." She turned around to look at the same bit of empty space in front of us to say, "We are looking for our friend. He is a tall man with blue hair. Have you seen him?"

There was a bit of a pause, and then she said, "Can you take us to him?"

Another pause. Then she looked back at us with her eyes wide. "He knows where 2D is!" she shouted. "Come on!"

Russel and I scrambled to fall into step behind her. I wasn't about to get caught in front of her. With no way to see where that Taro kid was headed, chances were I'd end up walking straight through him. While I was doubtful that would do much to hurt me—or him, either, I suppose—the fact remained that it would still be awkward as hell.

Noodle led us across the car park, down the main hall corridor, and onto the lift. She gave Russel a funny look once the door shut and said, "Ah…Russel? You are stepping on Taro-kun's foot."

I watched Russel try (and fail) to create more space in the seriously overcrowded lift (honestly, the thing was built to hold two, maybe three people, and Russel counted for at least two and a half) and thought, _Well I'll be damned. I always thought anybody who got crushed under Russ would be dead as a doornail. Ghost or not, that kid's a resilient one._

That lift ride could not have ended soon enough for me. I was shoved up against the back wall with Noodle's bony elbow jamming into my side and standing closer to Russel than I ever wanted. The fact that Russel was sweating buckets and the stench was making the air nigh unbreathable only made the situation that much more unpleasant. (He might try to claim that the nasty stench was coming off_ me, _but I can tell you in good confidence that _that _is a dirty lie. Anybody who doesn't appreciate my uniquely dashing bodily musk has clearly never seen the effect it has on the ladies. Drives them wild!) When the doors opened and we all spilled out into the corridor, I was grateful to have survived.

Noodle started off down the corridor, moving fast enough that Russel and I had to jog to keep pace. She looked back at us over her shoulder to say, "I think we are getting close!"

Beside me, Russel shouted, "D! You up here? _D!"_

I glared at him. _That's right, _I thought. _We were doing so well avoiding the monsters, so by all means, scream your head off and attract them all right to us._

Noodle decided to join Russel in doing everything humanly possible to get us killed. "2D!" she called. "Please answer, 2D!"

We reached the door to the kitchen, ran inside, and stopped in front of the door that led into the walk-in freezer. The tip of my shoe nudged something that made a rattling sound: a pocket-sized tin. It was all dented to shit and if it had ever had a label it had been worn away a long time ago, but I had more than a faint inkling of what was inside.

Noodle was talking to the empty space in front of her, saying, "In there?" as I knelt down to pick up the tin and opened it. Sure enough, the thing was loaded with green-and-white pill capsules.

I cleared my throat and held the open tin out for Noodle and Russel to take a gander at. They gaped at it with expressions that would have been funny if the whole situation hadn't been so damn grim. (Not that their distress was unfounded. Those pills were about the only thing 2D owned that he wasn't constantly losing, breaking, or hurting himself with. I swear he's worse than a toddler.)

Russel shook his head and said, "Shit."

There were a couple of seconds of very uncomfortable silence. Then Russel nudged me and Noodle out of the way and jerked the door wide open. A fog of chilled air rushed out. It was so cold it felt thick, like something you could choke on. Something fell out: a skinny body with blue hair lying face down on the floor.

"2D!" Noodle gasped. She and Russel dropped to the ground on either side of him, checking for a pulse and trying to revive him. I was convinced that they were wasting their time. 2D was lying completely still, and his skin had gone a pasty white. (Of course, even under the best of circumstances he's practically pale enough to glow in the dark—nothing like me with my fetching olive hue. This, however, was a sickish, waxy-looking color that just screamed _not alive.)_

"Come on, D. Say something," implored Russel.

There was a pause, long enough for me to think, _yep, dead as a doornail _before 2D let out a pathetic groan and slurred something that sounded like: "Wassit…whozzat…?"

"It is us, 2D," said Noodle. "Can you get up?"

There was another long pause. It was as if the cold had made his brain run even slower than usual. Finally, he mumbled, "Tired."

Russel and Noodle both seemed to be very concerned at that. (I, on the other hand, had half a mind to give him a kick in the arse.)

"We've got to get him out of the cold," Russel said. "Muds, get over here and help us move him."

_Hmph, _I thought. _What am I, your servant? _Still, with a new album in the works, I figured it would be prudent to do what I could to keep my singer alive long enough to get the singing bits taken care of, so I knelt down and grabbed one of his wrists. It was like grabbing hold of a half-frozen chicken leg.

Once we got him clear of the freezer, Russel went to close the door. He took one look inside, then jumped about three feet in the air (and believe me when I saw _that _is an accomplishment), screamed "Jesus Christ!" and slammed the door shut so hard the wall shook. When he turned around his eyes were practically bugging out of his head.

Noodle and I shared a _What in the hell just happened look._ Then, I cleared my throat and said, "So. Russel. Care to tell us what the fuck that was all about?"

"One of those…things…was in there. Christ, D must have been stuck in there with it."

It took me a moment to digest that little tidbit. Once I was sure that yes, Russel was still sane—or at least, as sane as he gets—and no, he wasn't trying to pull some sort of idiotic joke, I said, "2D was locked in a freezer with a flesh-hungry monster all day and he's still alive. What the hell is he, some sort of zombie charmer?"

"I think it was dead," Russel said.  
"Ah. Well that makes it all peaches and cream then, doesn't it?"

Russel looked like he wanted to say something else, but another sad little groan from 2D spared me from having to hear it. I turned to see what he was whimpering about and saw Noodle trying to prop him into a sitting position with his back against the counter. Russel stepped in to help her, even as 2D slurred, "Ur…lemme sleep…" like some drunk tramp lying out in a gutter.

"Why is he not shivering?" Noodle whispered.

Russel shook his head. "I don't know. He has to be hypothermic. We should get him to a doctor. Help me pick him up."

"Why?" I scoffed. "Going to carry him there?"  
"What?"

"Well it's not as if we can just load him up in the Geep and drive off on our merry way, is it?"

"Yeah, well we can't just leave him lying here on the floor," Russel shot back. He tried to stand up with 2D's arms looped over his shoulders piggy-back style and narrowly missed crushing 2D's head in when he crashed back down to the ground. (Not that having his head smashed in—again—could possibly make him any thicker than he already is.)

Noodle watched Russel trying to sit up without mashing 2D's limbs and said, "We have to get him warmed up or—"

I didn't hear what came after "or" because at that second, the kitchen door burst open and a big man in dark clothing came in. He was shouting at us; something about "It's not time yet" or something else that made equally little sense. None of us had to understand what he was talking about to know what he meant. The hunting knife he was waving around in front of him spoke for itself quite clearly.

Noodle, Russel, and I dove around the edge of the counter to avoid having our heads lopped off, Russel dragging 2D behind him like an oversized rag doll. The knife hit the counter, cutting deep into the wood with a hollow _tok! (Bastard! _I thought. _There goes the resale value.)_

None of us had to diddle with what to do next because there's only one thing to do when you've got a raving lunatic waving a knife in your face: run and hope to high hell you're faster than at least one of your friends. Noodle was first on her feet and sprinting for the door, presumably to hold it for Russel, who had somehow managed to get up before me, even with 2D draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. With Russel's bulk occupying the narrow space between the counter and the sink, I was stuck behind him.

Seconds later, I saw a flash of light against metal—the knife, slashing through the air straight at my face. With Russel blocking the way in front of me, the only thing I could do was dive back to the ground with my hands over my head. I bunged my elbow on the way down. Hurt like the dickens. Something stuck me just under the bony part of my shoulder and tore. _That _hurt a hell of a lot worse.

My face was still pressed up against the ground, so the bastard couldn't hear any of the choice names I called him as I made a blind kick. My foot connected with something solid. I couldn't see where I'd hit him, but I sincerely hoped that he'd got a faceful of high quality Cuban-heeled shoe. There was a loud _thud _behind me. I took it to mean that wherever I'd hit him it had hurt enough to knock him over, which was better than I'd been hoping for.

I had no idea how badly I'd been hurt, but I could feel hot, sticky blood all over my shoulder. When I tried to get up, the stab wound flared against the movement. I could feel my arm trembling, threatening to give out from under me. I bit my lip and willed it to hold long enough for me to get to my feet because there was no bleeding way I was about to let myself be stabbed to death in my own damn kitchen.

There was no sign of Noodle or Russel by the time I was up. I didn't know where they had run off to while I was busy thrashing about on the floor and getting myself stabbed, but it was clear that I wasn't going to be getting any help from them, the dirty hypocrites. I looked around for some sort of weapon I could use to defend myself. (A knife. Or a hacksaw. Or maybe even a blowtorch. You know; standard kitchen fare.) The only thing to be had was a rusty old can of cooking spray that was sitting in the sink.

There was no time to think about what a pathetic example of a weapon a half empty can of sprayable cooking oil made. I reached out with my good arm, scooped the can out of the sink, and made a break for the door.

I could hear the loony running after me. Loud footsteps that sounded just as heavy as Russel's, but faster than anything Russel could ever hope to manage. I knew right away that even under ideal circumstances I wouldn't have been able to outrun him. Bleeding from a stab wound that rendered my right arm next to useless, I didn't have a chance.

I was pushing open the door that led out into the corridor when I felt a couple of beefy fingers brush against the back of my shirt. I whipped around before he could get a grip and threw my free arm up to block the knife that was aimed for my neck. The knife bit into the fleshy part of my arm, but I was so pissed off barely I even felt the sting. I twisted my arm away from the blade, grabbed onto it with my bare hand, and put all of my weight into forcing his knife hand down with a snarl. (That bastard wanted me dead? Fine. Just _dandy! _But I wasn't about to sit there quietly as he set about hacking me to bits. Oh, no. If I was going to die, it was going to be kicking and screaming. He was going to feel my _wrath! _The wrath of Murdoc Niccals, the greatest badass bass player the world has ever seen!)

The man stepped back as though he _hadn't _expected his would-be victim to put up a decent fight. That was just the opening I was looking for. _Try and kill __**me, **__will you, _I thought, and with a furious scream, I brandished my can of cooking spray and jammed down the button on top. A fog of processed oil shot out of the can with a hiss and went straight into the man's eyes.

The man bellowed like a bull elephant and swiped at his eyes with his free hand. I gave him a kick in the shin for good measure and he wrenched the knife out of my grip and started swinging it out in front of him. I have to give him credit—even swinging blind his accuracy was alarming. I ducked a slash that would have taken out my eye, a swipe that would have opened up my chest…and took a stab to the side that knocked the wind out of me.

I cupped both hands over the wound and staggered back through the door and out into the corridor. I didn't need to look to know that it was bad. My whole side was already slick with blood, all the way down to the top of my jeans, and I could feel something pulling inside the wound every time I took a step. It felt like a slimy fish swimming around inside me. I took that as a sign it would hurt like a bitch the second my adrenaline high wore off.

The man was still stumbling around in the kitchen. I could hear him cussing, heard him knock against the wall. Worrisome as the stab wound was, I knew I'd practically be signing my own death certificate if I hung around out in the open long enough for his vision to clear. With my hands still clamped over the hole in my side, I wobbled down the hall in search of a suitable hiding place.

* * *

**Author's notes: **There you are; another chapter of The Underground, hot off the presses! I apologize for the slight delay—action scenes are always a challenge for me. Yet another big thank you to all the awesome people out there who are still reading, reviewing, and adding this story to your favorites and alerts—I really appreciate all of your encouragement!

Next chapter: Carnage (Oooh…ominous!)


	8. Carnage

CHAPTER EIGHT

* * *

-Noodle-

* * *

When I was very small, I was one of 23 children who were trained to be fearless. Under the tutelage of Mr. Kyuzo, we studied every martial art to perfection. Judo. Praying Mantis. Jujutsu. Tai Chi. Every fighting form you can imagine and more.

The Japanese government believed that with such an arsenal at our fingertips we would become a new breed of warrior. Fearless, yet obedient tools to be dispatched in times of crisis…and then thrown away.

Luckily, I escaped that fate, but thanks to the specialized training I underwent, there are very few things that frighten me. The expression on Taro-kun's face when the man with the knife burst into the kitchen was one of them.

Eyes bulged wide, jaw hung slack, skin bleached gray…the raw, uncensored fear in that look was so potent it was contagious and I was terrified for him. He was a child trapped in a nightmare. I had to save him.

I was on my feet and at the kitchen door before I could even process what I was doing. I do not remember standing up. I do not remember running across the room. I only remember looking at Taro-kun's terror-stricken face one moment and standing in front of the door the next. It never even occurred to me to worry about Russel or 2D or Murdoc until I was flinging the door open.

I paused with one foot out in the corridor and one still in the kitchen. _Should I go back? _I wondered. _2D is in no condition to defend himself. That man could kill him. That man could kill all of them._

Beside me, Taro-kun's fear had graduated into hysteria. His eyes were still gaping wide open and now there were tears dribbling down his cheeks as he made a desperate grab for my arm. When his immaterial hands passed through my arm like cold smoke, it only seemed to intensify his panic. His body began to convulse with what might have been sobbing, but even now he was eerily silent. I did not need to hear him to understand that he desperately wanted me to run.

There was a rapid-fire thud of footsteps behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw Russel running for the door with 2D draped over his shoulder. He didn't appear to have any trouble managing the added weight, though 2D's head was flopping against his chest with every step he took. I waited until they were a few steps away from the door and then I threw it wide open and threw myself out of their way.

Taro-kun was off and running the instant I moved. Behind me, I heard Russel barrel out into the corridor, but there was nothing to indicate that Murdoc was behind him.

"Wait, Taro-kun!" I shouted. The words only seemed to encourage him to pump his legs faster.

I wanted to know that Murdoc was all right. At the same time, I had an irrevocable feeling that losing Taro-kun while he was in such a state would be a terrible mistake. That look of fear in his eyes. I'd seen it before. It was the type of fear that stays with you, fermenting until it turns you into something dangerous, rotten, and sick. Worried as I was about Murdoc, the thought of a dangerous spirit with all the sensibility of a terrified child worried me more.

I caught Taro-kun at the lift. He was huddled against the doors with his arms hugged up over his head. He did not seem to know that I was there.

"Taro-kun," I whispered. His shoulders gave a sobbing jump, but he did not turn around. I looked over my shoulder. The hall was empty. My chest went tight with surprise. _Where did Russel go with 2D? _I wondered. _Where is Murdoc? Where is the man with the knife?_

I opened my mouth to call out to Taro-kun again and promptly closed wit when I realized that doing so would only attract the man that he was so afraid of directly to us. I took a step closer to the shivering boy and reached for his shoulder. His body went rigid when my hand passed through it. I had just enough time to wonder whether I had hurt him before he whipped around to face me. My breath caught in my throat. His face was contorted into a hostile mask, lips curled into a snarl like a trapped wild animal. The cold that always hung in the air around him intensified to such a point it felt like a heavy, physical force pushing against me.

I took an involuntary step back. I could still feel the cold clamping around my chest, threatening to choke me. "Taro-kun," I gasped. "Please…."

Taro-kun's expression melted into one of shock at my choked plea, as if I had not been the one he had expected to see in front of him when he turned around. He brought a shaking hand up to cover his mouth and slumped against the elevator doors. His face was partially hidden by his mop of dark hair, but I could tell that he was crying in earnest now.

I do not know how or when he summoned the lift, but after a few seconds the doors slid open and he stumbled inside. I hurried in after him. "Taro-kun," I whispered. "Please calm down and look at me."

He buried his face in his hands and turned away. I frowned. _Could he be upset because he tried to hurt me? _"It is all right, Taro-kun. You did not hurt me. Now please look at me."

Slowly, he turned around. He did not take his hands away from his face, but he lowered them enough to peek out at me over his fingertips.

"Do you know that man?"

He backed away from me until he was pressed against the wall before he gave a small nod.

I took a deep breath before I asked my next question because I was almost certain that I knew the answer. "Did he hurt you?"

Taro-kun sank down until he was sitting on the ground with his knees pulled up to his chest. He was shaking with silent tears.

"I am sorry, but you have to answer me, Taro-kun," I said. "Did that man hurt…." I trailed off when I noticed that the lift was moving. I wanted to ask him where he was taking us, but he was hunched into a ball with his face hidden behind his knees, rocking himself back and forth.

He did not come out of his protective crouch until the lift stopped. When the doors opened, he stood up and ran out into the corridor without looking at me. I hurried after him. He was moving much faster than his small legs should have allowed. I was forced to run to keep pace. He picked up speed as he led me down the corridor, out into the car park. By the time I had reached Murdoc's Winnebago, he was already at the far wall—and then he was gone.

For a moment I was certain that I had lost him. Then I remembered the crack in the wall—a narrow gap that had opened sometime during the band's absence from Kong. I had noticed it when I first returned to Kong, but with the rest of the building in a state of disease-ridden filth I had paid it little mind. In my struggle to make the building livable, I had completely forgotten about it. Now I feared that had been a mistake.

With a sense of dread sitting heavy in my chest, I hurried towards the crumbled out hole in the wall. There was a pale light inside the hole; indication enough that this was the place Taro-kun was leading me. I ran through the hole towards the light and into someplace cold and dark and cramped.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was a stench that went beyond rancid; a concentrated wave of putrefaction that made my eyes water as it slammed into me like a physical assault. I clapped my hands over my nose and mouth, but it wasn't enough to block it out. I could still feel it burning in the back of my throat.

Tentatively, I took a few steps deeper into the cavern. My foot hit something slick and gooey. I had to take my hands away from my face to catch my balance and the smell invaded my senses, making me dizzy, making me sick—I was going to be sick.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the feeling to pass. I knew as I stood there that I had to look at whatever it was that I had slipped on. I was positive that it was what Taro-kun had led me there to see, but I did not want to see what was giving off that terrible smell because I knew what it was. It was the same smell that permeated the twisted nightmares I had experience night after night ever since I had returned to Kong.

Part of me wanted to believe that this too was a nightmare. That if I tried hard enough, I would wake up sweat-soaked and shaking, but safe in bed. _If I just keep my eyes closed, _I thought. _If I just keep them closed…._

I looked. Lying in front of me was a heap of blackened, rotting meat. With only Taro-kun's sickly yellow glow to light the cavern, it was too dark to make out the more intricate details of what was in front of me, but I could see grimy scraps of cloth that might have been clothes between the countless carrion creatures that were writing in the putrefied flesh. I could also see that it was vaguely the size and shape of a young boy.

"Oh, Taro-kun," I whispered. "I am so sorry." I tore my eyes away from the body to look at Taro-kun—and then I saw the other bodies.

There were many of them, all in various stages of decay. The more recent dead still bore evidence of the violence that had befallen them. Angry slash marks. Limbs twisted at sickening angles. One of them was missing all its fingers. They were all female. I knew that even the ones that were too far gone to tell by a simple glance were female—and none of them had hair. Seeing them all together I noticed that all of them had been cruelly shorn.

_Then that means that box of hair in the instrument room was…._ I shuddered at the thought—and then I remembered something else. A female newscaster with lipstick on her teeth, her cinnamon-red lips dancing up and down to say three words that made my blood run cold: "The Essex Scalper."

I realized then with startling clarity the truth behind the nightmarish visions that had been plaguing me: _They weren't trying to hurt me or any of us. They were trying to scare us away to protect us from something much, much worse._

* * *

-Russel-

* * *

Everything was happening too fast. I'd barely even begun to process the fact that there was a crazy guy with a hunting knife in our kitchen when I saw Noodle running for the door. I wanted time to think of a plan; time to think of some way to get all four of us out of there safely, but there was no time think—only to act.

2D was lying on the ground beside me. I'd had trouble lifting him up only seconds before, but with panic and adrenaline both hitting me hard, I had no trouble hefting him over my shoulder. Noodle was already at the kitchen door. I crossed the room in three steps to run out into the hall after her.

I didn't stop running once I was out in the hall. With 2D barely conscious and nothing to defend us besides my own bare hands, I knew I couldn't afford to have the intruder catch me. I was halfway to my room before I realized that Noodle and Murdoc weren't with me.

I stopped and looked up and down the hall for any sign of them or of the man with the knife. The hall was empty and dead silent. That silence put me on edge. Even in the middle of the night, Kong is never quiet. It's like the building itself is a big, diseased beast. Now it felt like the whole building was holding its breath waiting for something terrible to happen.

I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard the groan. I was so sure that something was about to pop out of the shadows it took me a couple of jelly-kneed seconds to realize that it was just 2D.

Heaving a sigh, I wiped at a couple of beads of sweat that were threatening to roll into my eyes and muttered, "God; don't do that again, D."

I have no idea if he heard me, or whether he was able to understand me if he did. His only response was to start shivering.

I shook my head. _I've got to get D someplace safe before I can look for the others, _I thought.

By the time I got to my room, 2D was shaking so badly I was afraid I was going to drop him on the floor. I managed to make it across the room and dump him on the bed instead. He didn't seem to notice the rough landing. He just laid there with his eyes half open and glazed as his body continued its uncontrollable shaking. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was having some kind of a fit.

I reached for the covers on the bed but stopped when I noticed that they were still in a rumpled knot around the spot were Noodle had slept only the night before. After everything else that had happened, it was hard to believe that it had all started when I'd woken up with a crick in my neck from sleeping on the floor that same morning. Zombies, hypothermia, a broken-down Geep…the hours might as well have been years.

I tried to convince myself that 2D's shaking was a good sign as I smoothed out the tangle of sheets and blanket so I could cover him with it. _It's just his body trying to warm itself up, _I thought. _Shivering equals movement. Movement equals warmth. _It made sense. I knew it made sense, but seeing him convulse like that, I couldn't help feeling bad for him.

"OK, D," I muttered once I finished piling the blankets on top of him. "I have to find Noodle and Murdoc, but I won't be gone for long. Just wait here, OK?"

I was almost out the door when I heard 2D mumble something through his chattering teeth. It was too quiet for me to hear what he'd said. Whatever it was, I decided to take it as a sign he'd heard me. "Don't worry, D. I'll be back."

Out in the hall, the silence had gotten so intense I could feel it pressing in at me from everywhere, like the water pressure on a deep sea sub. With an armed man intent on killing all of us stalking the halls, I knew it wouldn't be long before something broke and it all came crashing down. I wanted to make sure we were out of there before that could happen.

I inched down the hall, listening for any sign of Noodle or Murdoc. I didn't hear anything. It occurred to me that they could have gotten to almost anywhere in the building by then. That wasn't a very encouraging thought. Kong is so big it can be very hard to find somebody when you don't know where they are—and that's when the people you're trying to find _aren't _hiding from a crazy man with a knife.

I saw the blood when I got to the junction that connected my hall to the one with the kitchen. It wasn't much—just a few splotches on the ground and a couple of smudges of the wall—but it was enough to tell me that someone was hurt.

There was more blood on the door directly across the hall from me. It was smeared all around the handle, like somebody had tried to wipe it off and only made it worse. I stood there for a long time wondering what to do about the door. The question wasn't whether or not there was somebody inside, but _who _was inside. I knew that there was a good chance it was Murdoc or Noodle and that there was also a good chance that they were hurt. But then, there was also the disturbing possibility that it was the man with the knife huddled there in the dark waiting for someone to come along so he could take them by surprise.

Finally, I decided that for better or worse, I had to find out what was behind that door. I walked across the hall and stopped with my hand on the doorknob, straining to hear anything that would give me a clue as to what was inside. The only sound I heard was my heart thumping against my chest hard enough to hurt.

I had a stupid urge to knock on the door and say, "Muds, you in there?" or "Noodle, is that you?" Instead, I took a deep breath and clenched my hand into a fist. _If that crazy guy is in there I'll smash his head in, _I thought.

"OK," I whispered. "Here we go."

Summoning up as much intimidating bravado as I could scrape together, I poured it all into a roar that dragged from the pit of my stomach, threw the door open, pulled my fist back for a one hit KO punch—and stopped mid-swing. The momentum made me stumble forward, leaving me vulnerable for an attack, but it wasn't the man with the knife who I'd found in the room. It was Murdoc; or, to be more precise, a blood-soaked, pale and clammy-skinned Murdoc who was sitting limply propped against the wall.

At first I thought he was dead. There was so much blood on him and on the floor around him I could smell it—a metallic, yet organic tang that made my stomach do a lazy roll. Then he looked up at me and said, "Damn it, Russel, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

I was so relieved to see that he wasn't dead I didn't know what to say. I settled with saying the first thing that popped into my head, which turned out to be incredibly stupid. "Are you OK, man?"

"Oh, yes. I was just about to go and hit the clubs. Care to join me? Oh, wait. I forgot. I'm _bleeding to death in a storage closet you idiot!" _He shuddered and pressed his hands to his side before punctuating his outburst with: "Damn it."

I squatted down on the floor next to him and said, "Can I see where he got you?"

He looked like he wanted to shout at me again before he hesitantly moved his hands away from the area they were clutched over. I leaned in close to try and asses the damage only to discover that the wound was hidden underneath a balled-up towel that was so saturated with blood I couldn't even tell what color it was. _Damn, _I thought, eying the blood that was oozing through the already soaked towel. _This is bad. OK. First things first. _"We need to move before that guy comes through here. Can you walk?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

I swallowed back a sigh. _If he's feeling well enough to act like an obnoxious jerk he's well enough to make it to my room, _I decided. "Come on; let's go."

Using the wall behind him for support, Murdoc shakily started to stand up. He was about halfway there when he groaned and slumped against the wall, muttering a string of curses under his breath. I reached out to help him, but he batted my hand away before I could touch him.

"Keep your mitts off of me," he panted. "I'm fine."

He stayed hunched against the wall for a long time, panting like he was trying to catch his breath. I noticed as he stood there that there was another gash on his back. It wasn't bleeding as badly as the first one I'd seen, but it still looked pretty ugly. I grabbed a handful of towels off the shelf in front of me, hoping it would be enough to slow the bleeding down when we got to my room.

Once Murdoc was standing we started back to my room, him hobbling and sucking little gasps of air through his teeth and me keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't fall down. We didn't hear or see any sign of the man with the knife the whole way there.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I am back! And yes, this chapter is a bit shorter than the last few have been. I'm anticipating that next chapter will be on the shorter side, too. The one after that will make up for it, though. Promise. Thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, or adds this to favorites or alerts—it really makes my day to know that people enjoy this story, so please feel free to let me know what you think!

Next chapter: Siege


	9. Siege

CHAPTER NINE

* * *

-2D-

* * *

I loved working at dad's carnival. Being a money collector is a pretty easy job, and I could oogle all the girls that came through the line. (You might wonder how many oogle-worthy girls would show up at the carnival without a guy in tow, but let me tell you: you'd be surprised. There were always a few that were very easy on the eyes. Give them a couple of free spins on the Waltzer here, an extra go on the Switchback there and they would be all over you.) After work I could always look forward to cruising around town with Shane Lynch. If we'd worked things just right a handful of the girls we'd met that day at the carnival would come with us.

The only time working there wasn't so great was when it rained. Nobody goes to the carnival when it rains, least of all unattached girls looking for fun. I can't say I blame them. The dusty ground turns into a big, muddy mess, your candy floss goes all soggy, and no matter where you go you're going to end up cold, soaked, and shivering.

I didn't have to work too many rainy days, but the ones I did were pretty nasty. I didn't think I could be any colder or more miserable than when I was stuck standing in front of the Switchback ride stomping my feet to keep the feeling in them and my hands so numb I could barely take the money from the few people crazy enough to go to a carnival in such awful weather. Boy was I wrong.

The first thing I remember after I passed out in the freezer is waking up under a pile of blankets. I don't remember how I got there. Not exactly, anyway. I do remember a lot of yelling, some running footsteps, and a big zombie song and dance number, but that's all so hazy I can't tell what happened and what didn't. I've tried asking Murdoc about it, but every time I mention the zombie cabaret he gives me one of his "you're-an-idiot-and-you're-pissing-me-off-with-your-stupidness" looks. Maybe I should try asking Russel or Noodle instead.

I _know _that the pile of blankets happened, though. I remember because when I woke up my body felt cold. Bone marrow-searing, blood turned to cherry slush, oh my God where did my hands and feet go _cold. _My body was shaking like crazy and my teeth were chattering so hard my jaw hurt. I wanted to stop shaking, but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to get. I couldn't even get my hands steady enough to pull the blankets tighter around myself. All I could do was lay there trying to catch my breath as my body flopped around like a dying fish. It was enough to make me wonder where the fisherman who would bash me over the head with a mallet to put me out of my misery had got to. From the massive migraine that was tearing apart the inside of my head, I was pretty sure he'd been by at least once already.

I was still lying there doing my dying fish impression when I heard the door open. Until then, I hadn't really thought about who or what might be lurking around outside my little blanket cocoon. I guess that was pretty stupid of me. I mean, that would probably be one of the first things to come into your head if you woke up in a bed that wasn't yours with no memory of how or when you got there, right? Don't worry, though. When I heard that door creak open, I spent a couple of heart-hammering seconds having a healthy panic attack as I considered all the unpleasant possibilities: _A zombie. A troupe of zombies. A troupe of zombies about to perform Zombie Cabaret, part 2. Another social worker with a positive paternity test. The man who pushed me into the freezer…._ I probably don't have to tell you how relieved I was when I realized it was just Russel and Murdoc, talking in half-whispers.

"Jesus, Muds," Russel was saying. "What the hell did that guy do?"

"What the hell does it look like?" Murdoc growled back. There was a bit of a pause, and then he groaned and hissed, "Damn it, Russel, I'm not one of your taxidermy projects; that hurts!"

"Sorry, man." Another pause. Then: "Do you know where Noodle went?"

"I thought she was with you."

They both went quiet again after that. For a while the only sound I could hear was somebody sucking in little gasps of air like they were hurt. Then Russel said, "OK. Hold that towel on there tight. I want to check on D."

I was still shaking and freezing cold, so my brain was only about halfway through processing what Russel had said when the blankets were pulled away from my face and I was looking at him face to face. He was so close I could smell his breath as he muttered, "How're you doing over here, D?" (It smelled like an old chocolate shake.)

My lips and tongue felt thick and stupid, like they'd been numbed up with too much Novocain. I had to fight to chatter out, "R—Ru-usss?"

His eyebrows shot up about three inches. "You woke up." I don't know whether he sounded more surprised or relieved. Either way, I didn't see what he was so excited about. Waking up is something I do every day. Sometimes I even do it more than once like when I doze off while I'm watching the television. Or when I'm eating breakfast. Or in the middle of a recording session.

I tried to say "Is Murdoc hurt?" but my mouth kept tripping over the words and it came out sounding like: "Izz..z…M-Muh…Mrrd-do..ck…."

"Yeah, D. Murdoc's here, too." He frowned when he noticed me trying to wiggle into a sitting position and added, "Don't try to get up yet. Just stay under the covers and get warm, OK?"

I flopped back down onto the bed and managed a sluggish "Mmm…."

Russel backed out of my face and a couple of seconds later, he was talking with Murdoc again. At first I tried to listen to what they were saying. They sounded worried, and usually if _they're _worried about something that means that _I _should be worried about it, too—but they were being so quiet I couldn't hear what they were saying and after a while I got tired of trying to pick out what they were talking about. I was so cold and my head hurt so bad and I was so, _so _tired. All I wanted to do was roll over and go back to sleep. Go back to where it wasn't so cold. Go back to where my head didn't hurt so much. But no. The second I closed my eyes there was this bright light shining in my face that wouldn't go away.

For a while I just laid there with my eyes closed, trying to pretend that I didn't notice the light because to tell you the truth, it kind of sort of scared the everloving bejesus out of me. I couldn't stop thinking about how they say you see a bright light right before you die, and this was a white, eye-searing light; the sort that makes the dark behind your eyelids go all orangey-red. The longer I laid there the more sure I was that it was a "dead and going to heaven" light as opposed to a "somebody's shining a flashlight in my face" light or even a "somebody who is probably Murdoc is playing a very mean joke on me" light. I figured the longer I kept my eyes closed the longer I could put off collecting my prize for being right. Because being dead is a pretty crappy prize.

I wasn't dead or about to be dead when I finally did open my eyes, though. Instead I was looking at a kid who was glowing so bright it hurt to look at him. Even though I couldn't see his face, I figured it had to be Taro-kun. I mean, how many kids could there possibly be out there who can light up like a firefly?

I wanted to ask him to please turn the light down because it was making my migraine do terrible, terrible things, but my mouth still felt like it was a billion miles away from my brain. I settled with squeezing my eyes shut instead. He seemed to get the hint. When I opened my eyes again he was back to that pale yellowish-green glow that made me think of those glow in the dark starts kids put up on their ceilings.

Now that I didn't have a stadium light shining in my face, I could see that Taro-kun was sitting cross-legged beside me on the bed, just peering down at me looking nervous. When he noticed I'd opened my eyes again, he gave me his "follow me" look. Then he got up and jumped down off the bed.

I didn't want to move. It was cold. The covers were warm. I was tired and the bed was so nice. I didn't even have the energy to try and explain any of that to him. The best I could do was a tired little groan that made me feel like I was back in primary school again mumbling, _"Just two more minutes, mum. Just two more…."_

That had almost always worked on my mum. It didn't work on Taro-kun, though. A couple of seconds later he was back, staring down at me with his eyes wide and panicky and his lip puckered like he was trying not to cry. It was the most devastating sad puppy face I'd ever seen. (Really, I bet even Murdoc would have had trouble saying no to that face.) It was more than enough to convince me that even though I was cold and tired and my head felt all mucked up, I had to at least try to follow him when he jumped down off the bed again.

I took a deep breath, pulled together energy from I-don't-know-where, and managed to roll my shaking body once, twice, and _CLUNK—_right off the side of the bed. I landed on top of a big pile of takeout containers. My first thought was _Huh. Guess that means we're in Russel's room then. _My next thought was _I really hope those were all empty. _(I could stand being cold and tired and having a headache, but stinking like crusty old curry and Chinese food wasn't going to make that particular situation any better. Actually, I don't know if stinking like moldy takeout could make any situation better.) Then, as a nice little afterthought, I mumbled, "Ow."

I spent a few seconds laying there in my pile of broken bits of Styrofoam watching all the lovely little stars that the fall had sent zinging through my head. Murdoc and Russel didn't seem to notice my troubles. They were still whispering away in that same tense, something-really-bad-is-happening tone. I laid there listening to their voices buzz around in my head until I got my bearings. Then I rolled onto my stomach and kicked my legs out of the mess of blankets I'd dragged off the bed behind me.

I could see Taro-kun standing two, three steps ahead of me, waiting for me to get up and follow him. It took everything I had just to get my arms and legs to cooperate enough for me to drag myself along the ground, and even then my legs didn't want to push, my arms didn't want to pull, and I had to stop and rest every couple of feet. Taro-kun didn't seem too happy with my slow as a slug pace. He kept bouncing on his feet in front of me as if to say, "Hurry up, _hurry up!" _He looked very relieved when we finally went through the beaded curtain that led to Russel's Xbox room.

At first I couldn't figure out why he'd been so dead-set on leading me in there. I thought maybe he wanted to play some video games and how if that was the case I could show him a couple of wicked Halo cheats if my hands ever stopped shaking enough for me to hold the controller. He didn't make a move towards the Xbox, though. That got me thinking that maybe he was more of a Pong man and if _that_ was the case, I'd have to remember to show him my mega widescreen game someday if I ever—a low, threatening voice broke through my happy little video game fantasy: "Where's your friend with the pretty blue hair?"

It's funny how mortal terror can make you forget things like being cold or tired. Even the brain-bending migraine that had been making me suffer two seconds before didn't matter anymore because I knew that voce. I'd only heard it once, but I _knew _that voice. It was the man who Taro-kun was afraid of. The man who pushed me into the freezer. The Bad Man. _Oh God he was out there—right out there and looking for me._

I heard Russel say, "He's not here." He sounded nervous. Scared. That made me nervous and scared, too.

"I think you misunderstand me." The man's voice went about ten shades creepier as he slowly repeated, "Where the fuck is your friend with the lovely blue hair?"

"Hold on now," said Russel. "You don't want to do that. Just—"

_"Where the fuck did you take him?"_

"He _was _right there!" Murdoc shouted. His voice was a high-pitched whine that would have been really funny under just about any other circumstances. "Swear to Satan!"

That was when the gunshot went off. Have you ever heard a real gunshot go off in the room right next to you? I hadn't. I hadn't ever even heard a real gunshot before that, period. It was much louder than I'd ever expected it to be. If I'd have had the strength, I would have jumped and let out a nice, manly shriek. When my ears quit ringing I heard the tail end of a scream. Somebody—Russel. I knew it was Russel—was moaning.

"Where's he at?" screamed the Bad Man.

"We don't know!" Murdoc screamed back. "Fucking hell!"

There was a long, thick stretch where nobody said anything. If it hadn't been for Russel's gasping, I would have thought they'd left. Then, finally, the man said, "Get walking."

Murdoc let out a strangled laugh that made him sound like a nervous horse with lung disease. "How the fuck do you propose we do that?"

Another gut-twisting, bongo drum heart-busting stretch of silence. Then: "Get walking or I'll put a bullet through your fat friend's other kneecap. And then I'll put one right through your brains."

_I have to do something, _I thought. Stupidly. Hysterically. _I __**have **__to do something. _I tried to jump up to do I-don't-know-what to help, but I couldn't even get up off the ground and my body was still _shaking _and I couldn't even pull together enough strength to shout out "I'm in here; leave them alone!" (I don't know if I'd have had the guts to do that even if I'd been able to. I like to think I would have, though.)

Out in the main part of the room, I heard Murdoc say, "Come on, Russ. Let's go." A few seconds later, I heard a bitten-off scream that made my throat clog up with the kind of fear that makes a sour taste come up into your mouth. I'd never heard Russel scream like that. I'd never heard anybody scream like that. It was nothing like the way people scream in horror films. Compared to the sound that had come out of Russel, people in horror films might as well be singing _Ave Maria. _I head a door open, heard lots of shuffling, stumbling footsteps, and then the door closed. The room was quiet after that.

I laid on the ground limp as an old, worn-out sock because I was alone and Murdoc and Russel were hurt and I didn't know what to do and _holy shit the man had a gun and he was looking for __**me—**_and then I remembered my cell phone. It was still in the kitchen. It _had _to still be in the kitchen. The kitchen wasn't far from Russel's room. If I could make it there—if I could just make it there and phone for help….

I looked to Taro-kun to say thank you for helping me hide (or as much of that as I could push past my frozen mouth and chattering teeth), but he was already gone. _Next time I see him I'll invite him to play Pong, _I decided. Then I started off, half dragging, half crawling my way towards the kitchen.

* * *

-Murdoc-

* * *

That bastard tied us up. Or, to be more specific: that bastard took us to _my _café in _my _studio and cuffed me and Russel down to the booths in there with two sets of silk-lined handcuffs from _my _Winnebago. I wanted to give him a kick in the arse. Scratch that; I wanted to rip that gun out of his grubby paws and shove it up his arse and _then _give him the above-mentioned kick to the derriere. I mean, honestly. What kind of a person breaks into your recording studio, stabs you in the back, tries to turn your lead vocalist into Iceman, shoots your drummer, and then has the _nerve _to break into your innermost sanctuary and use your own lady-pleasing tools against you? A knob, that's who. A complete and total knob.

I was so angry I was seeing red. Everywhere I looked—_red. _Most of it was blood. My blood, slicking down my back and puddling on the café floor. Russel's blood pouring out his ruined kneecap and running down the side of his booth. (Sweet Satan the cleaning lady was going to pitch a fit and demand we double her pay, the ungrateful old hag.)

The knobhead left us there with an overblown promise that he'd "be back after he took care of the other two." (I kid you not, those were the son of a bitch's precise words. Just how many poorly-made bang bang shoot 'em up movies had he watched before he went crazy in the head?)

Once he was gone, I wasted a good five minutes banging those handcuffs against the table, pulling at the catch, and trying to slip my hand out. (Of course none of that worked. Those were high-quality little toys. I'd had them custom-made when the band first hit it big in order to be ready for all the nights of—_ahem—_fine entertaining I was sure to be doing now that the world had recognized my supernatural talent, good looks, and charisma.)

It took the piss out of my sails once I realized that the handcuffs were going to do what they were meant to do and hold no matter how much abuse I heaped on them. I decided then to turn to my last hope for getting out of that face alive and relatively in one piece. Clearing my throat, I croaked, "Russ. Hey, Russ!" (I admit, Russel may not be as good as Noodle for such circumstances, but he was miles better than a certain blue-haired idiot whose only suggestion would have been something like "Ooooh! Murdoc, let's sing _Row, Row, Row Your Boat _in a round!")

Russel didn't answer. In fact, Russel hadn't said anything coherent since he'd had his kneecap blown out. That was a bit worrisome.

I stretched my legs as far as they would go and managed to strike up a nice, loud percussion line to the side of the booth he was stuck in: THUMPA-THUMP! THUMP, THUMP, THUMPA-THUMP! I kept kicking his booth until the hole in my side puked out a fresh slick of steamy-hot blood. Then I clutched my hands over the wound and shouted, "Russ! Damn it, fats, answer me!"

He answered, all right. Mumbled some rubbish about the Grim Reaper and started whimpering out the names of all his dead friends. He sounded like some old geezer having a war flashback. Clearly, he was not going to provide me with a lick of help. (Disappointing, that. I'd been convinced that if anybody could break those handcuffs by force, it was our resident tub of lard with fists the size of hams. Failing that, I'd been sure that he would be able to tear the table out of the wall.) I was on my own—and it soon became apparent that not only was I on my own; I was fading fast.

Even with my hand clamped over it, the wound was pouring out a steady stream of the old red stuff. I also had a sneaking suspicion that I'd managed to tear something important during that last bit of kicking around. The puddle of blood I was lying in had grown to a frankly alarming size, and there was a coppery taste in my mouth that hadn't been there before. I probably would have found those developments upsetting if I'd have been in my right mind. Lying there handcuffed to a table and bleeding out on the floor, it just made me tired.

I let my head flop back and decided that I would close my eyes for just a few seconds. Just long enough to catch up on a little beauty sleep. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the last thing I can recall before my memory turns into a big...dark…blur…of…nothing….

**

* * *

**

Author's Notes:

Well, there you have it; chapter nine, hot off the presses! We're getting near the end here, folks, so a LOT is going to happen next chapter. Don't say I didn't warn you (haha). Thank you to everybody who's kept with this story reading, reviewing, favoriting, and alerting. It's been so encouraging to get so much feedback from you guys!

Next chapter: The End


	10. The End

CHAPTER TEN

* * *

-Noodle-

* * *

Some people believe that there is great dignity in death. They see the passing of the spirit from one state of being to the next as a mystical act—one that must be commemorated with rituals which more often than not include a respectful disposal of the shell that the spirit has left behind. Some cultures bury their dead. Some burn them to ashes. Others embalm them and send them out to sea in tiny boats, or entomb them in shrines filled with treasures.

The truth is that the dead have only as much dignity as the living allow. For all the thousands of kings enshrined in elaborate mausoleums, there are millions of people who lie forgotten in unmarked graves. Even the pharaohs, the "living gods" of Egypt are not immune. If anything, they have it worst of all. Their graves are dug up, their tombs are plundered, and there are bones scattered and put on display for people to gawk and stare at them in museums all over the world. There is no dignity in that—and there was no dignity in what I saw in that narrow crack in the wall with Taro-kun, either.

These people had been victimized and then thrown away; left to rot with their heads open, their chests open—_everything _open. Exposed. Vulnerable to anybody who happened by to see. Carelessly stacked on top of each other, they looked more like nameless slabs of meat than people who had once been alive with friends and family. How many of them been mothers? Sisters? There was no question in Taro-kun's case that he had been somebody's son. Who would tell his mother? I have no memory of what it was like to live in a normal family—how it felt to be loved by a mother, a father, a brother, a sister. Even so, it still hurt to imagine the anguish that some woman was going to experience when she learned that her young son—not even ten years old—had died at the hands of a sick monster.

Taro-kun vanished soon after he led me to that foul grave. Perhaps remembering how he had died was upsetting. Maybe it was embarrassing. Either way, I felt bad that he had disappeared so suddenly. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was that there had been nobody to save him. I wanted to tell him that the man who had done these terrible things would never do them again; that I would not _allow _him to do them again. But he had already gone, and the best I could do was bow my head and offer him and all the other victims a moment of respectful silence.

I stood there alone in the dark with my head bowed and the heavy smell of rot coating the back of my throat for a long time. The car park was silent when I finally crept back through the crack in the wall. It was as if it too was taking a moment to honor the desecrated dead that had been lying hidden there for so long.

I ran across the abandoned parking area without taking my eyes off the door that would take me back to the corridor. Now that I knew what was there, the stillness in the air made me feel like I was an intruder in a private crypt, and all I wanted to do was get out.

Part of me wanted to find the man and put an end to all the horrible things that he was doing right then and there. I knew that I was capable of incapacitating him; of killing him if it came to that. But…but I was worried about Murdoc, Russel, and 2D. I knew that 2D needed a hospital. With that sick man after them, they all might need a hospital. More importantly, I knew that it was not my right to decide how to punish the man for the things he had done. That was a privilege that belonged to the mothers, fathers, husbands, brothers, sisters, children, cousins who had lost somebody important to them, and I knew that I was going to need help to make sure they got that privilege. That is why I stopped running when I got to the studio. My plan was to use the phone inside to call for the help I would need.

The studio was dark. That put me on edge. I did not see the man with the knife inside, but I knew that meant nothing. He could easily be lurking in the instrument room or the desk room, where the dim light filtering in from the hall did not reach. I did not like the idea of handing a cold-blooded killer an open invitation to take me by surprise. _But I have no choice, _I thought. _I have to use the phone._

I took a cautious step into the dark room and after a moment's thought, I shut the door behind me. I felt better with the room back in pitch black. Fighting blindfolded is one of my specialties and knowing that he couldn't see me just as surely as I couldn't see him was enough to convince me that the dark would negate any advantage he might have gained from a surprise attack.

With my back pressed against the wall—_Never allow your opponent to creep up on you from behind, _I thought. Even now I can remember the urgency in Mr. Kyuzo's age-cracked voice as he said those words to me and all his other pupils—I began to edge away from the door. I held my breath as I went, listening for any sound that would tell me where the man was hiding. _Does it even matter? _I wondered. _Even if he does not know that I want to use the phone, he will know where I am the second I—_

_Scritccch! _My foot nudged something small and hard that scratched against the floor with a scrape of metal on tile. In a flash, I was in a defensive stance with my muscles coiled and all my senses on high alert. I stayed like that for a long time, waiting and listening. The only sound I heard was the adrenaline-laced hammering of my heart against my chest. That was enough to convince me that I was alone. The scraping noise had been quiet and brief, but if the man had been in the room it would have been enough to signal him to make his move.

Slowly, I knelt down and picked up the thing I'd kicked. It was cold in my hand. Light. Square. Definitely metallic. I could feel something etched into hits surface—a word or some simple design—but I could not decipher what it was. I squeezed it in my hand and its sharp edges bit into my palm as I felt along the wall for the light switch.

When my fingers found the switch, I flipped on the lights and stared down at the thing I held in my hand. It was a small, square-shaped metal button, smudged a dirty brown-green with age and use. A number was cleanly etched into the middle of its surface; a meticulously printed 3. There were three letters under the number, each printed with the same precision: D, E, F. I stared down at the button in my hand and whispered, "Oh…."

I did not need to look at the phone. I already knew what I was going to see. I looked anyway.

The phone was a mess of broken plastic and torn wires. The receiver was missing, its cord so violently severed it was a dangling tangle of shredded plastic. The number keys were scattered across the floor like broken teeth.

I knew then that calling for help was no longer an option. There is no other land line telephone in Kong and I had carelessly—_foolishly—_left my cell phone behind in the hotel room. _I have to find the others, _I thought. _They may need help._

Another thought occurred to me as I tossed the useless number key to the ground, cutting through my head as sharply as the clipped tap of metal button against hard floor: _What about the man with the knife?_

I frowned at that. _If I see him, I must stop him. But Murdoc, Russel, and 2D come first._

With my mind made up, I crept out of the studio and backed out into the hall. The last place I had seen any of my friends had been upstairs on the first floor. I had no way of knowing whether or not they were still there, but I decided that it was the most logical place to start looking.

I held my breath as I waited for the lift. Under normal circumstances, the lift is loud enough to hear from anywhere in the building, but on that day it worked as quietly as a freshly-oiled new machine. It was as if the stifling silence from the car park had spread while I was in the studio to force the rest of the building into choked silence.

I took up a fighting-ready stance as the lift began to rise. Although the ride was quiet, there was always the possibility that the man would be standing at the elevator doors, waiting and ready with the knife. I was ready when the doors slid open—but the hall was empty.

The first thing I saw when I got off the elevator was the blood. There was blood on the floor; an irregular trail that alternated between scattered drops and puddles the size of my fist. There were brownish, half-dried smears of it on the wall, too. I didn't see or hear any sign of the man in black. I didn't see or hear any sign of 2D, Russel, or Murdoc, either. There was just the blood and the silence.

I decided to follow the trail. One step. _I had no idea whose blood it was._ Two steps. _It would be a wild stroke of luck if it was the man's blood. _Three steps. _I did not know what I would do if it was Russel's blood. Or Murdoc's. Or 2D's. _Four steps. _Where did this trail start? Where did it end? Was I even going the right way? _Five steps. It was on the fifth step that I saw the feet poking out of the kitchen. The feet were attached to a pair of gangly limbs that were impossible to mistake. _2D!_

The blood had come from him. The blood had to have come from him. There was nobody else in sight; nobody to claim that thick, dangerous trail of smeared reds and dried browns. In that moment, I forgot stealth. I forgot caution. All I could do was run.

I was so certain that I was going to see another scene of carnage I felt my knees go weak with relief when I got to 2D's side and saw that he was alive and in relatively one piece. His skin was pasty and his whole body was shaking—both signs that he still needed to get to a hospital—but there was no blood aside from the bruises and scrapes he'd acquired in his fall from the Geep.

I started to kneel down to see if he was conscious and noticed that my shoes and legs were splattered with cold blood. I had not noticed the blood splashing up onto me when I ran down the hall. I had been in too much of a hurry to see if 2D was still alive. Now it was impossible to ignore the wet, sticky feel of it against my skin. I tried not to think about it as I sat down on the ground to take a closer look at 2D.

"2D? Can you hear me?"

There was a long stretch of silence, long enough that I began to worry that I had imagined that first low groan. Then: "N-Noo…dle?"

Hearing him say my name was a relief. When we had first found him locked inside the freezer, he had not eve been able to recognize me or Murdoc or Russel. If he was able to do so now it was a definite step forward.

2D's lips were still moving, trembling and twitching to form words that I could not hear. I knelt down, brought my ear up to those cracked lips, and listened.

His teeth were chattering so vigorously I could hear them grinding together. Whatever he was trying to say, the words were trapped in his throat. Trapped behind those chattering teeth. The only word I could hear escaped in a stuttering grunt: "C—coun..nt-ter."

I frowned. "Counter?"

2D's lips moved again, as though he wanted to explain why that word was so important, but no sound came out.

_Is he trying to tell me that there is something on the counter? Maybe I should check. _"Wait there, 2D," I whispered. "I will be right back."

Under normal circumstances, it is impossible to find anything in the kitchen unless you know exactly where it is before you start looking. But all four of us had been busy with recording the new album ever since returning to Kong. Too busy to unpack anything more than the most basic kitchen implements. The counters were almost completely bare, and it was easy to see the cell phone lying on the counter against the back wall.

A heaviness I had not even noticed lifted from my chest at the sight of that flip phone. _I can still call for backup, _I thought. _I can still call for an ambulance._

There was a terrible moment as I ran across the room in which I was certain that the phone would be out of power, but the screen lit up bright and strong when I pressed the power button. I grinned. The battery was fully charged.

Behind me, I heard a dull thud followed by a tired, pained moan. I turned around and said, "Do not try to move, 2D. You are still—"

I was certain that the sound I had heard had come from 2D. I assumed that it was nothing more than a clumsy attempt to stand up. The phone had made me feel safe. Stupid.

The man in black was standing over 2D with one leg up, ready to kick again. Without a second thought, I was running across the room, leaping up into the air, screaming, _"Leave him alone!"_

The roundhouse kick connected with his face on the word "alone", like an exclamation point that reverberated through my bones. The man was still staggering backwards when I landed on the ground, ready to hit him with a second strike.

I turned, every nerve in my body on razor edge, every muscle ready to fight, ready to attack, ready to _snap into action—_

_BANG!_

I dropped into a defensive roll, but too late. My right arm was already a blood-soaked firestorm of pain. I could feel my mind clouding over. Sinking down into a comfortable haze of numb shock.

_No! _I knew that I could not afford to lose myself to that inviting wave of nothing. Not with my life and 2D's life and possibly even Russel and Murdoc's lives hanging in the balance. Barely able to find myself in the opaque fog in my head, I put my tongue between my teeth and bit—hard.

The pain in my mouth was nothing next to the scorching waves that were traveling through my arm, but it was enough to clear the dizzy haze that was wrapped around my brain.

_The gun, _I thought. _Where is the gun? _Clenching my jaw against the pain in my arm, I looked up. The man had the gun trained on my head.

"That was a warning shot, sweetie," said the man. "You're going to stand up nice and slow now. Nothing funny or I'll shoot you in the head."

If he was a normal man, I would have ignored him and launched into another attack. But I knew that he was no normal man. Worse yet, I could tell by the way he held the gun that he knew how to handle it. If I tried to disarm him, he would have no trouble planting a bullet between my eyes.

I was so angry with myself I felt ill. _How could I have not expected him to have a gun? How could I have allowed the situation to deteriorate so quickly? How could I have allowed myself to be trapped so clumsily, so stupidly?_

I had still not moved from my place on the ground when the man nudged 2D's shivering body with the toe of his boot and then rested his foot on his back. "If you don't do as I say I will kill this little shit. And then I'll kill you. Now STAND THE FUCK UP!"

I did not want to listen to him. I doubted that he would be able to shoot both 2D and me before I was able to reach him, but I did not want to risk either of us losing our lives. Hating myself, I slowly stood up.

The man kept the gun aimed at my face. "And now," he said, "you're going to come with me."

I took a deep breath. "If I go with you, will you leave my friend alone?"

The man said nothing, but he took his foot off of 2D's back.

Slowly, I walked over to where he was standing. As soon as I was within arm's reach, he glided around me and pressed the gun to the back of my head. I could feel the metal muzzle there, still warm from the shot he'd fired seconds earlier as I stepped over 2D.

The man stepped over 2D and snatched my shoulder in one of his big, heavy hands. I stopped and held my breath, certain he was about to pull the trigger. Certain I was about to die.

But then I heard a weak, pained voice—2D. "P-please…."

Moving only my eyes, I looked back and saw 2D pulling at the cuff of the man's trousers. "Pl…please don't hurt her," he whispered. "Please."

The man did not even look back as he raised his foot and rammed it into 2D's face. 2D flopped back down to the ground and stayed there. He did not move or speak again. I saw a trickle of blood roll from his nose, over his bluish lips. Then the man gave my shoulder a shove and we left the kitchen.

As we walked out into the hall, I noticed that I was clutching something small and hard and plastic in my good hand. 2D's cell phone. I had been so shocked by the sudden appearance of the gun I had completely forgotten about the cell phone. That the man had not noticed it was a miracle. Quietly, careful not to attract his attention, I slipped the phone into my pocket.

I knew as we continued down the hall that I needed to shift the man's attention away from the gun long enough to disarm him or get away. I knew that I needed to talk to him. The thought of exchanging even one word with that monster was enough to make me feel ill, but I knew that it was the best—and maybe only—way to help Murdoc, Russel, and 2D.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

The man pressed the gun against my head and snarled, "Shut up. Open your mouth again and you're dead."

I did not speak again. I did not want to risk fighting him with a gun to my head. No matter how fast or how strong you are, nobody is faster or stronger than a bullet to the brain.

Before I could form an escape plan, the man stopped us in front of the lift. "Right then. Listen up, sweetie. Right now, we're on the top floor. If you take a look at the lift call panel, you'll see two buttons. One of them calls the lift to take you down. There's a small, white button just below that. Do you see it?"

"Yes," I whispered. He did not explain the function of the second button, but I knew what it was for. I had used it often in the months I had spent renovating Kong. The maintenance button.

"You're going to reach out, nice and easy, and push that button for me," said the man.

With the muzzle of the gun still pressed against the back of my head, I did as he said. There was a loud, mechanical whir; the sound of reinforced lift cables straining, and then the doors slid open to reveal a dark, gaping hole.

Even though I knew what his next words would be, they still came as a shock. "In you get."

I stared into the empty elevator shaft. _I can't help anybody if I fall down there…._

I did not realize that the gun was no longer against my head until the gunshot exploded through my ears. It had been so close I felt it reverberate in my skull. There was something warm and wet in my hair—blood from my ear. The shot had nicked my ear.

With the gunshot still ringing in my ears, the man's voice was a faraway buzz. "You've got five seconds to jump before I put the next one into your head. Five…."

There was nothing I could do.

"Four…."

If I tried to fight I would be dead before I could land a hit.

"Three…."

I did not know what would happen if I fell.

"Two…."

I decided to opt for the unknown. I spread my arms and tumbled down into the darkness.

* * *

-Russel-

* * *

I don't know how long I laid there completely out of it. That gunshot had brought back a lot of bad memories. That 7-Eleven. Icy rain pouring down, hitting the car like a drumbeat gone wild. It was cold outside, but inside the car I was sweating. My friends and I, we were talking about something. I don't remember what. The record store? Murdoc's stab wound? 2D's hypothermia?

No…Murdoc and 2D didn't come until after that night. Whatever we were talking about, it was long before Murdoc or 2D or Noodle.

I saw the black Humvee, and then…OH JESUS THE UZIS WERE FIRING I COULD SEE THE LIGHT OF THE GUNSHOTS POPPING LIKE FLARES IN MY HEAD AS SOMEBODY SCREAMED AS I SCREAMED THERE WAS BLOOD EVERYWHERE ON THE SEATS ON MY FACE AND THE REAPER—ALL IN BLACK JUST LIKE THE MAN WITH THE GUN—HE WAS _HERE! _OH GOD THE GRIM REAPER WAS HERE IN KONG NOW AND—

—I woke up drenched in sweat. I felt weak. Shaky. Vaguely, I realized that my leg ached and I was lying on a hard, narrow surface that was slick with blood. A bench in the café. I was in the café.

The booth across from me was streaked with blood. There was a body there, so bloodstained it was almost impossible to recognize. Even so, I knew who it was.

I tried to sit up, but a sickening pain screamed up my leg. With a groan, I laid back down on the blood-soaked bench. I waited for the pain to recede back to the constant but manageable throbbing. Then I croaked, "Murdoc?"

There was no answer. Just an ugly, gut-twisting silence. _Is he even breathing? _I wondered.

I laid there in the silence for a long time, listening for a grunt, a groan, anything that would tell me that Murdoc was still alive. I was still lying there when the door flew open and 2D stumbled through. He took a couple of uneven steps with his arms windmilling like somebody had pushed him from behind. Then his legs gave out and he fell to the floor face first.

The man in black stormed in after him, screaming, "Get up! You little shit! GET UP!"

2D didn't move. After a couple of seconds, the man growled through his teeth, hauled 2D up by the back of his shirt, and started dragging him across the floor.

2D's head flopped so far forward his chin almost touched his chest as he was dragged. With his head hung so low, I couldn't see his face clearly, but the glimpse of blood-slick chin and lips was enough to tell me that he was bruised, battered, and in even worse shape than before. He didn't even seem to have the strength to struggle as the man continued to drag him along.

The man stopped in front of the big bay windows that looked out over the zombie-infested graveyard. Outside, the sun was about to set. The last dying rays of sunlight that filtered in through the dirty glass bathed 2D and the man in a tired, washed-out red color.

The man stood there for a few seconds, staring out at the pinks and the reds and the oranges that were burning through the sky. Then he smashed 2D's face up against the glass and said, "Look at the sunset."

2D tried to pull away from the glass, but the man grabbed a handful of his hair and shoved him back up against the window with a dull thud.

"I said look at the goddamn sunset!" the man screamed.

The man let go of him, but this time 2D didn't try to move away. Instead, he sank down to his knees with his face still pressed against the window, leaving a watery trail of blood and snot on the glass behind him. He stayed like that, slumped against the glass and shaking while the man reached for something at his waist. And then I saw the gun.

_Oh shit. _I tried to get up because I knew exactly what he was planning to do with that gun, but when I moved my leg the sickening pain was back with a vengeance, popping in my head like the lightning gunshots on that cold, rainy 7-Eleven night. The back of my throat seized up in a scream that came out as a gag as I flopped back down onto my back.

Across the room, the man in black had the gun pressed to the back of 2D's head. "You don't even know how lucky you are," he said. "You don't know how goddamn _lucky _you are, do you?"

2D shuddered but didn't answer; not even when the man screamed _"DO YOU?" _so forcefully all the sinews in his neck stood out.

The man gulped in a couple of deep breaths before he went on. "Normally I'd never even consider…never even _think about _making a man into art. I'm not some goddamn Nancy boy. No way. It's just that hair…." He grabbed a handful of 2D's hair and ran his fingers through it as he said, "I've never seen hair that color before. That's why I have to add it to my collection. You understand that, right?"

_Shit, _I thought. _Shit, shit, shit, SHIT! _I struggled with the cuff around my wrist so hard it clanged against the table. My leg screamed against the movement, but I knew that 2D would be dead if I didn't get up. No matter how hard I struggled, the cuff held.

Knelt in front of the window with the gun pressed to his head, 2D's shoulders heaved. I couldn't tell whether he was crying or screaming or whether he was just shaking that hard. I knew that if I could just stand up I could do something to help—I could distract the man in black; I could bash that bastard's head in, I could—the man pulled the trigger.

_CLICK._

Nothing.

2D let out a choked noise from somewhere in the back of his throat.

There was a gut-dropping instant in which I realized that the gun was empty; that the man _couldn't _shoot 2D or anybody else, that 2D wasn't dead. Then the man grabbed 2D by the hair, bashed his head against the window, and dumped him on the ground.

Arms and legs scrabbling, 2D tried to crawl away from the man. He made it about three feet before the man delivered a kick to his gut that flipped him onto his side and left him gasping. The man wound up for another gut-busting kick, but 2D managed to curl into a ball before it hit and the kick glanced off of his shoulder instead.

"You little shit!" screamed the man. "Don't you fucking move while I'm gone. You understand me? You'd better wait right there!" That said, he threw the empty gun at 2D's head and ran from the café.

I laid there listening to 2D's choppy breathing until the door slammed shut. Then I cleared my throat and said, "D?"

Slowly, 2D came out of his protective huddle and crawled towards my booth. "R-Russ," he whispered. "Oh God, Russel, he killed Noodle."

A sick, cold feeling twisted through my gut. "What?" _No way…there's no WAY…._

"He killed Noodle! He shot her!" His arms gave out from under him and he collapsed face-down on the ground. His voice was shuddering at the edge of tears as he laid there talking into the ground. "I heard him do it. I heard him shoot her. I couldn't—he…he killed Noodle. _He killed Noodle!"_

_He's wrong, _I thought. _He has to be wrong. Noodle can't be dead. That bastard couldn't kill her. She wouldn't LET him kill her. _I couldn't listen to 2D's hysterical babbling any longer. I yelled, "D!"

2D cut himself off mid-sentence with a gulping hiccough and laid still.

I took a shaky breath and said, "Do you have your cell phone?"

"W-what?"

"Your cell phone!"

"No…it's still in the kitchen. But Russel, Noodle—"

"I know, I know! We'll worry about that later." My gut did another uncomfortable twist at those words. As sure as I was that 2D was wrong, it was impossible to ignore the fact that Noodle was still unaccounted for. _But we don't have much time before that guy comes back. If any of us are getting out of here alive, this is our last chance to make a move._ "Listen, D, can you walk?"

"I…I don't know," he mumbled.

"Can you move?"

"I don't know. I think so."

"OK," I sighed. "That's good. The kitchen isn't far from here. Try to get to the kitchen and call for help with your phone."

He lay still for so long I started to worry that he'd passed out. Then, finally, half-dragging himself, he started towards the door.

2D's progress was painfully slow. I had no idea how long the man in black was going to be gone, but I knew that he could return at any second, crazy as ever and ready to kill. Still, I watched as 2D made it past my booth, made it to the end of the dining area, made it to the door. He was lying directly in front of the door when it flew open and hit him hard enough to send him rolling in a tangle of arms and legs.

The force of the hit sent the door swinging shut. There was a muffled string of swearing from behind the door before it opened again and the man in black burst through. He stood there in the doorway for a few seconds, darting angry glares around the room before he saw 2D lying on the ground in front of him.

I tried to yell a warning to 2D as the man started towards him, but I couldn't push the words past my throat. 2D was so stunned chances are it wouldn't have made much of a difference.

Once he was standing beside 2D, the man snarled, "I thought I told you not to move."

That nasty, angry voice was enough to snap 2D out of his stunned daze. He scrambled to right himself.

The man waited until 2D was on his hands and knees, ready to sit up. Then he planted his foot between 2D's shoulder blades and forced him back down to the ground. 2D let out a yelp that sounded like a kicked puppy and lay still. He didn't move or make a sound when the man lifted him up by the back of the shirt and started dragging him across the floor.

_He's unconscious, _I thought. _Unconscious or dead. _But when they got closer to my booth, I heard a low moan that was enough to convince me that 2D was still alive and still awake.

I knew I had to do something to help. As they passed by, I tried to stick my good leg out far enough to kick or trip the man—anything to distract him for just a couple of seconds. Even that effort was enough to make my vision swim.

I was going to be sick and the man in black—the Grim Reaper—was going to blow everybody away in a hail of bullets because he was there—HE WAS THERE IN THE BLACK HUMVEE SWEET JESUS HE WAS—

A dry cough cleared away the fuzzy, sick feeling in my head. The man had 2D on the ground in front of the windows. One of his knees was digging into 2D's stomach. In his hand was the hunting knife he'd been waving around the first time I'd seen him.

He was staring down at 2D like a butcher surveying a slab of cold beef. I saw him pull back the knife and—

"Don't."

The word was so quiet I wasn't even sure I'd said it out loud. But the knife hadn't plunged down yet. I licked my cracked lips and repeated, "Don't. Please."

The man didn't turn around but the knife was still up in the air. I said, "You don't have to do this, man. Just let him go."

Slowly, the man lowered the knife.

"That's right," I said. "Let him go."

The man sat there without answering for a long time. Then he said, "Didn't your parents ever tell you not to interrupt an artist at work? They're liable to snap and do something crazy."

_Shit. _"Look, man, I'm just saying—"

"One more word and I'll slit your throat."

"Please, just—"

"I said _shut the fuck up!"_

The man raised the knife and turned his attention back to 2D. The knife plunged down.

I closed my eyes and screamed, "D!"

I heard another scream over my own—somebody with a higher voice. 2D. 2D was screaming. I didn't want to look. Jesus Christ, 2D was _dying. _I didn't want to watch 2D die. I didn't want to watch anybody die.

2D was still screaming when I opened my eyes. But he wasn't dying. Instead, he was doing something I'd never expected him to do. He was fighting back. Punching, jabbing, clawing, and slapping blindly, it was a desperate, uncoordinated attempt at self-defense. Even so, a deep, fresh cut on his shoulder was evidence enough that he'd somehow managed to prevent the man from stabbing him someplace more serious.

The man was trying to pin 2D's arms down with his free hand, but 2D was so frantic the man couldn't hold him still with just one hand. I didn't know whether to laugh or cheer when one of 2D's wild punches hit the man on the nose, producing a wet crunch.

The man let out a furious roar, dropped the knife, grabbed 2D by the shoulders, and slammed his head against the ground. "You little fucker!" he screamed. "You broke my fucking nose! Son of a bitch!"

His hands moved up, easily wrapping around 2D's scrawny neck. I heard a choked gag, saw 2D kicking his legs and clawing at the man's hands.

The knife was lying on the ground where it had been dropped, close enough to 2D that I was sure he could reach it if he knew. "The knife, D! Get the knife!"

There was another painful gag. 2D's legs were still kicking, but weaker. His hands were still pulling at the man's hands around his throat. _Oh Christ he didn't hear me._

_"2D, GET THE KNIFE!"_

His legs were barely moving. His hands were sluggishly batting against the man's iron grip. His face was turning blue.

There was a blur of motion. Something flying through the air so fast I couldn't even see what it was. The man fell backwards, letting go of 2D as he tumbled head over heels.

2D rolled onto his side, coughing with his hands hugged up to his throat. There was a small figure with dark hair standing in front of him. For the barest second, I thought it was Noodle's friend, the infamous Taro-kun. Then I realized that it was _Noodle—Noodle _who had just delivered a kick to the man's already broken nose; _Noodle _who was definitely not dead and standing in front of 2D ready to fight.

Two seconds later, the door opened and a stream of men decked in bullet-proof vests and armed to the teeth poured into the room. One of them was yelling, "On the floor, hands on your head! Now! Right now!"I knew the words were meant for the man in black, but I was so dizzy with blood loss and so shocked by their sudden appearance I had to fight the urge to roll off the seat and lay on the ground with my hands on my head, too.

The man in black was reaching for the knife, but Noodle was too quick for him. She ran forward, kicked the knife out of his reach, and landed a crushing uppercut. The man dropped like a sack of potatoes and didn't move again.

As soon as the man was on the floor, the men in vests were on him like a swarm of ants. I saw some of them hurry over to where 2D was still lying on the ground coughing, and more of them rushing over to Noodle to shake her hand—her left hand. Only then did I notice that her right arm was hanging limp at her side and bleeding.

From the booth across from me, I heard somebody say, "You were wrong, Johnson. This one's still alive. Get him out of here and get someone over there to check on that big guy, will you?"

It took me a second to realize that they were talking about Murdoc; that it was Murdoc who was still alive. I was so relieved I was willing to let the "big guy" comment slide. Besides that, I was so exhausted by that point I could barely even scrape together the energy to answer the questions they were asking me, let along raise a stink about a less than flattering comment about my weight.

The café was still swarming with police officers and EMT's when they got me onto a stretcher. The last thing I saw in all that chaos as they rolled me out the door was Noodle pressing something small and plastic into 2D's hands. A cell phone.

Between the blood loss and the noise in the room, there's no way I could have heard what she was saying to him. Still, I could swear I heard her say, "I borrowed your cell phone. I hope that is OK."

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Surprise! I'm not dead! And neither are any of the guys. Thanks to everybody who has put up with my wonky update schedule and stuck with this story for so long. I really appreciate all of your reviews, alerts, and favorites. One more chapter to go!

Next time: Not _Another_ Press Conference….


	11. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

* * *

-2D-

* * *

It's funny, the things you get nightmares about. When I was a kid, I used to have nightmares about the couch in the sitting room coming to life and eating me. To be fair, it was a pretty scary couch, all big and red and puffy—just like the inside of a whale's mouth. It didn't help that the white throw pillows mum used to keep on it looked like teeth. Big, lumpy whale teeth just waiting to chew me up and swallow me down. Mum tried telling me once that most whales don't even have teeth, but I know that if they did those pillows are exactly what they would look like. Except less squishy-comfy and more stabby-ouchy.

It's even funnier the things you _don't _get nightmares about. You'd think that none of us would have been able to sleep again after everything we'd been through with the zombies and the invisible friends and the power outages and the crazy man who wanted to kill us. But then you'd be wrong. OK, I can't vouch for the others, but I know that _I _never had any nightmares about what happened. I probably would have in those first couple of nights if it hadn't have been for the meds, though.

For the first couple of days, I was on some pretty strong stuff. So strong I couldn't feel my body or much of anything else, either. It was Nice. Or at least, I think it was. I can't remember much of anything from when I on that stuff. Wish they'd have let me take some of it with me when I left the hospital so I could take it for my next migraine. None of the doctors or nurses seemed to think that was a good idea, though.

I woke up a lot more once they took me off those meds. That was Not So Nice. Before, I had a vague sense that something wasn't quite right and that the "something" probably hurt, but it was a funny, faraway pain, like what you get when the dentist shoots your mouth full of Novocain. It was easy to pretend that the doctors were talking about somebody else when they said "concussion" or "broken ribs." It was a whole lot harder to do that when my head was throbbing and my chest was screaming at me to STOP BREATHING SO DEEP BECAUSE THAT HURTS! On the plus side, I was so busy thinking about my head and my chest I didn't have much time to think about any of the other stuff that hurt.

Officially, I had a concussion, four broken ribs (and three cracked, just for fun), mild hypothermia, a cracked jaw, and a crapload of cuts and bruises. All that because some psycho wanted my _hair. _Really, if he'd wanted it that badly he should have just asked. It would have been easier to just cut some of it off myself, and a whole lot less painful.

I wasn't the only one hurt, though. Noodle had her arm in a sling for a while. I know I shouldn't be surprised by her general awesomeness by now, but I still have no idea how she could have called the police, climbed out of the elevator shaft, and knocked the psycho flat with some mindbending kung fu without even using both arms. I try not to think too much about what probably would have happened if she _hadn't _managed to do all those things. Or if she'd done any of them just a few seconds slower, for that matter.

Russel ended up having to hobble along on crutches that were about three sizes too small for him while his leg was healing up. I'd have probably felt sorrier for him if it didn't look so funny.

Murdoc had it worst—a ruptured spleen or something along those lines. He milked it for all it was worth, too. As soon as he was awake, he made sure all the reporters came to his room so he could tell them all the gruesome details about his near-death experience, whether they wanted to hear them or—

…

…

* * *

-Murdoc-

* * *

I know what you're thinking. _Ooooohhh noooo! Where's 2D? It's his tuuuuuuurrrrn! _Honestly, did you think I'd allow this story to end without putting in my two pence? (And honestly, did you really want to see that nimrod floundering to come up with a proper ending? I mean, look at him—he can scarcely even string together two words as it is. Besides, who better to wrap things up than your dashing, brave, ingenious, all-knowing, all-powerful Uncle Mudsy? Even if I was…ah…asleep for the latter half of the action.)

To answer your question about 2D: he's off smoking a fag. So while he's busy with that, I'll just ease on in here and tie off those loose ends. Now where were we? Ah. The reporters.

Lovely little bloodsuckers they are. Contrary to what 2D (the cheeky little bugger) would have you believe, I never once insisted that they come to my hospital room. They were drawn there solely on the merits of my good looks and witty charm, I assure you. (Well, that and the several hundred "anonymous" phone calls I made from my hospital room to every newspaper and tabloid I could think of informing them which hospital they needed to visit if they wanted an interview with the heroic, world-famous band that caught the dreaded Essex scalper. What can I say? Publicity is publicity, after all.)

While I was busy fielding all the PR (and let me tell you, managing a pack of thirty different reporters all from different magazines and news stations is no easy task. It's like managing a pit of rabid voles, I kid you not), Noodle showed the police where all the bodies were. She and Russel ended up having to stay in that shithole of a hotel room while the police did their thing, but the investigation cooled down enough for them to move back into Kong by the time 2D was out of the hospital. By the time I was out of the hospital, the bodies were already gone and the police were all but finished with what they needed to do. (A relief, that. Much as I appreciate their saving my life, coppers and I just never seem to sit right with each other.)

I didn't actively follow the Essex Scalper trial (I'd had quite enough of that bastard by then and all I wanted to do was get back to the business of recording our _extremely _late album), but Noodle, Russel, and even 2D watched the news reports religiously. They wouldn't shut up about it, either, so I picked up all the important bits through involuntary osmosis. Here's the quick and dirty:

The trial lasted three weeks. The full list of victims was probably incomplete, but the official count was seventeen. He confessed to (or rather, proudly took credit for) everything the moment he was on the stand. The jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding him unanimously guilty on grounds of insanity. He was sentenced to life in prison. No worries, though. I'll be sure to find him and make sure he gets what he really deserves when I see him in hell.

Once the police stopped poking around, we were back to recording—Noodle with her mind-blowing guitar riffs and superhuman musical sense (which was cultivated and refined by yours truly, of course), Russel banging away on his drum set (though if you ask me, he could have used some help from his big blue friend. Shame Del went and got himself exorcised), and 2D being an idiot (What can I say there? At least he's good for drawing the teenyboppers into our tangled web of corruption and destruction). And of course, ME—Murdoc Niccals, the world's greatest bassist and man behind the band; the puppet master who dealt with agents and producers, set tour dates, and saw to it that we got our music video footage filmed properly, all while putting out a little album called _Demon Days, _which is only the greatest album the world has ever seen. (Quite seriously, if you don't own it you've either been living under a dead moose or brain dead—and even that's no excuse, so quit reading and go purchase it _now. _I'll wait.)

So there you have it. The story of Gorillaz versus the madman complete. Finito. All wrapped up and tied off clean and tidy. Nothing more to say except: sayonara suckers, adios amigos, and goodnight from Gorillaz, masters of rock, rap, hip hop, trip hop, funk, and what have you.

…

…

…

…

* * *

-2D-

* * *

Well, there's not really much else to talk about since Murdoc kindly explained about the investigation and the trial and recording the album. That's OK, though. I didn't really want to talk about any of that, anyways. There's one thing I did want to talk about that he missed, though.

The last time I ever saw Taro-kun was two weeks after I got out of the hospital. I hadn't seen him since the day everything went crazy. I was eating lunch—a sandwich I'd slapped together with half a can of SPAM and a dollop of some unidentifiable green goo I'd found in the back of the fridge that I really hoped was OK to eat—and watching TV without really watching. Just staring at the screen with the sound down and my brain about a billion miles away. And then, out of the blue, there he was on the TV. His hair was longer and he was missing that nasty purple ring of bruises around his neck, but the "look-how-cute-I-am" goofy little kid grin was easy enough to recognize.

At first I thought he'd gone all Samara-from-_The-Ring _on me. I swear I had a bowel-melting two seconds in which I seriously expected him to pop out of the TV screen and come crawling after me. Then I realized that (a) it was just a picture of him and (b) no, he wasn't about to pull any final-scene-of-a-horror-film-jump-scare-supernatural business. I reached for the remote, turned up the volume—and that was when I found out that Taro-kun's real name was Samuel Jenkins and that the man in black—the man with the knife, the monster man—was his dad.

Maybe it was that mysterious green goo in my sandwich, but I really didn't have much of an appetite after hearing that.

I don't know if any of the others heard about that. I never heard anybody mention Samuel Jenkins again. Not even Noodle or Russel or Murdoc. Sometimes I think that maybe I dreamed that whole thing about the sandwich and the TV and Taro-kun's real name and real dad. Either way, I didn't see him again after that, and as far as I know, neither did Noodle (or Russel or Murdoc, either, although I don't think they ever did see him to begin with).

I never got to thank the kid for saving my life, and I never got to invite him to play Super Wide-Screen Pong, but I DID name the automatic computer opponent after him. Sometimes when I'm playing against the computer, I'll shut my eyes and pretend that the kid is there, big, Bambi eyes and all, playing against me. And then I'll lose because I closed my eyes. Right now, the record stands at me: 23; SAM: 57. I was right; the kid is a Pong man, through and through.

**

* * *

**

Author's Notes:

Wow; I can't believe it—this story is officially complete! One last GIANT thank you to everybody who stuck with this thing all the way to the end, in spite of the infrequent updates (including a hiatus of…er…two, three years). I am blown away by how many hits this thing has gotten, and all of the reviews and adds to favorites and alert lists really mean a lot to me. Thanks again to all of my fantastic readers! 


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